John asked:
And one more question for Jerry Bromenshank:
Jerry , have you found any races/strains/common origin of bees that seem to
have avoided the CCD, or conversely, that seem to show susceptibilty?
Answer: I'm not sure. Surveys to date tend to list one more than the
others BUT that may be an artifact of how we are asking the questions. We're
working on normalizing the results.
Simple answer, we haven't found a resistant race or queen supplier - yet.
We may have some evidence of susceptible races, only time and more surveys
will tell. So, keep those surveys coming in, especially as we enter
spring/summer, when CCD should be easier to distinguish from overwintering loss. I'm
assuming that CCD isn't going away, unfortunately.
To illustrate the queen origin problem, using a somewhat different issue -
if we look at the CCD colonies across the nation, we seem to have a high
percentage of CCD colonies originating from some very specific parts of the U.S.
Many seem to have a common link back to a few very specific states, where
they were summered. (And no, the common link is not necessarily CA or Florida).
Except, given the main migration routes in the U.S., the apparent connection
may just reflect common movement patterns, rather than any real link. So a
link back to a region of the U.S. may not hold up.
Similarly, too many large beekeepers use queens from several suppliers, and
don't keep the records needed to trace colony performance to specific queen
lines or suppliers. On the other hand, sidelines and hobby beekeepers often
do know who, what, where -- mainly as a consequence of their smaller scale
operations. So, they may have the more useful information - if there is any
queen influence.
For those of you who like to dig in the literature, Bill Wilson's ideas
about a possible genetic basis for disappearing disease were eventually addressed
in articles in ABJ, I think in the early 70s, not by Bill, but by the Steve
Tabor and Harry Laidlaw (I think in the same issue).
And if anyone on Bee-L doesn't know who Bill is, he was the Research Leader
at the Wyoming Bee Lab (no longer in existence), and later at the Weslaco
lab. He lives about an hour and 1/2 out of St George, Utah. He's in good
health, and he's been putting together some notes about what happened all those
years ago. I need to get back to him.
Cheers
Jerry
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