In a message dated 19/04/2007 01:51:55 GMT Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Chris with your Bailey thread with unemployed foragers and
rubbing shoulders more for spread of disease, what comes to
mind here is: Cannot the bees groom themselves and clean
anymore in today's modern world?
Dee,
Viruses are a mite smaller than mites and I doubt if grooming will make the
slightest difference. What Bailey says is:
"....the incidence of severe cases of paralysis is positively and
significantly associated with the population density of colonies. Paralysis is
transmitted by bodily contact between a live infected individual and healthy
individuals, mostly during the foraging season. The more bees are crowded together
within their colonies the more efficiantly is the virus transmitted. This is
because the hairs on the cuticle of the bees are broken by close bodily
contact, and the virus is carried in and transmitted to the temporarily exposed
cytoplasm of the underlying tissue. Crowding in the winter cluster does not
spread paralysis because bees are then torpid and unlikely to damage one another."
Chris
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