> http://home.ezezine.com/1636/1636-2008.01.22.09.45.archive.html
> Kim Flottum posted a short article on CCD related research...

Maybe it is just me, but it pegs my irony meter that all the 
dead-out hives were re-stocked for these trials with package 
bees from Australia "last fall", at the same exact time that 
the same exact people were dropping heavy-handed hints about 
CCD, and the finding of a certain virus in bees from Australia 
in places like the journal "Science".

If what they claimed was true had actually turned out to be 
true, wouldn't their choice of package bee suppliers been
just a little bit counterproductive to getting useful 
results from the trial? (If anyone needs me to supply
a diagram to illustrate for this concern, e-mail me.)


Regardless, if we accept the claim that survival rates were 
better only on irradiated comb, then it should be clear that 
this is a claim that the problem was/is caused by a pathogen 
that is able to survive on comb after the bees die and/or 
abandon the hive.  Or multiple pathogens.

In other words, the findings, if supported by the data,
can only be read as "the cause is one or more biological 
pathogens".  I have no idea why the research team is still 
repeating the same old mantra quoted once again in the 
"Catch The Buzz" report:

>> The conclusion by the investigators was, at least so far, 
>> CCD is "likely an interaction of pesticides, Nosema, virus, 
>> nutrition and mites". But what role each of these plays is 
>> still undecided, or unfound. No single factor stands out yet.

Nonsense.  Their own findings say that a single factor certainly 
does stand out, and it is one or more pathogens.  Anything except 
a pathogen that can survive on the comb of a deadout should be
off the list of prime suspects, if they want to present these
findings.  Why equivocate?

If gamma irradiation stopped transmission of CCD, this is as  
clear and as strong an indication as one can have that CCD 
is caused by a biological agent that can survive the death 
of the colony in/on deadout comb.

So, one can eliminate pesticides, mites, and nutrition as
anything more than minor side issues, as they would not be 
affected at all by the irradiation of combs, and we can
assume these factors to be consistent across the irradiated
and non-irradiated hives within any one operation.

So, we are left with viruses and/or nosema.
Some sort of pathogen.

It is heartening to hear this team come back around to considering 
Nosema seriously after being so dismissive in their paper in "Science" 
about the 2006/20007 work by Joe DeRisi.


And for the record, the "speculation that irradiation will cause 
some pesticides to break down too" proved to be wrong in light
of comparing sunlight to gamma rays and the relative sizes of 
biological molecules versus pesticides.

I bear some responsibility in this, as I reported on this
speculation without taking the time to do the math myself, 
even knowing full well that most "debunking" is nothing
more than a matter of simply "doing the math".  My bad.

When you do sit down and do the math, you find that while
the use of gamma irradiation is going to kill any/every 
living thing placed in the beam, it has, at best, a very small 
chance of breaking down only a few pesticide molecules, 
and stands no chance at all of breaking down all the traces 
of pesticides that might be on any comb or in any pollen.

Pesticides like Imidacloprid are designed to break down in 
sunlight, which means that they are designed to be broken 
down by UV exposure.

Solar UV radiation is higher flux but much lower energy 
than gamma radiation used in irradiation.  If we were talking
about air or water rather than radiation, "flux" would be the
size of the pipe and hence the stream of air/water, while 
"energy" would be the velocity of the air or water flowing 
through the pipe.

The massive energy difference between the photons from the two 
different sources means that a gamma photon will destroy a 
chemical bond in any/every atom it hits, while a UV photon has 
a much smaller chance of destroying a bond (by a factor of 
thousands), and is only a viable threat to certain specific 
types of chemical bonds.

Now for the targets.

Pesticides are very small molecules as compared to anything 
biological. Anything alive is going to be a vastly larger 
assembly of much bigger molecules than even the most complex
pesticide.  

A virus is many thousands of times larger than a pesticide  
molecule, but the destruction of almost any single atomic bond 
in a virus will likely kill that virus particle.  

The same thing is true for the pesticide molecule, but the virus 
particle is much larger and has many more intact bonds required 
for it to be functional.  

So, the biological targets are so large, they are hard to miss,
and a hit anywhere would be "fatal".  The pesticide targets are 
much smaller, and stand much less chance of being hit at all 
unless you flood the area with uncountable photons, just like 
the sun does.

MaryAnn was going to run some specific tests on pollen to see if 
gamma radiation would break down any significant percentage of the 
trace levels of pesticide residues commonly found in pollen, but 
she does not need to bother, given basic parameters about the two 
different types of "bullets" and the two different types of "targets".

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