>> Given the amount of work done so far on CCD and comb contamination,
>> presumably someone has been checking for N ceranae spores?
> I don't know if it's actually happened.
Yes, of course it has.
More to the point, from the beginning, both kinds of Nosema have
consistently been found in colonies showing the common symptoms
of CCD. This has been well-known from the very first samples
screened, circa Feb 2007 or so.
Even the deeply flawed work leading to the 9/2007 paper in "Science"
showed a consistent pattern - both kinds of Nosema together in the
same hives correlate with a very high level of confidence to CCD.
http://bee-quick.com/reprints/dapaper.pdf
Their own data showed that the presence of both kinds of Nosema at the
same time correlated with a much higher degree of confidence than
did the much-ballyhooed "Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus" (IAPV):
http://bee-quick.com/reprints/dedetails.pdf
or, explained in plain English:
http://bee-quick.com/reprints/reads.pdf
I have renamed that virus ILPV ("Ian Lipkin's Pet Virus") so that we
will never forget how long we were delayed by attempts to take credit
for finding what is now clearly the wrong virus.
It is interesting to note that the two types of "comb
decontamination" employed on CCD dead-out equipment with
what Dave Hackenberg described as "success" were traditional
ways to decontaminate Nosema infested combs:
http://tinyurl.com/a5rrdu
or
http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/CCDPpt/PathogenSub-GroupProjectMay142007.pdf
(See "Equipment Re-Use From Dead Out Colonies")
But having both kinds of Nosema is not, in itself, "CCD". There's
more to it, but it is not my place to pre-announce findings that are
not yet scheduled for publication.
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