> We know you and the others will get to the bottom of it. We're just giving
> you a hard time, pending further releases of your findings so you will tell
> us more about your findings.  At least I am.
>
> Can't be sure about Bill.

My issue is with the presumed fact that CCD is new and has never been
seen before.

What we are talking about is bee behavior. What happens to bees when
stressed with virus, nosema, lack of food, whatever? We are assuming
that CCD elicits a new behavior and I am saying that bees have been
the same for a lot longer than we have been around and just because
the behavior is not in the literature does not mean that it has not
been seen before.

So the issue is not that there are new pathogens out there, for there
are. The import of bees brings in not just bees but other problems. It
is that CCD is something new and has never been seen while it has been
seen before and has been associated with Varroa/virus.

What have we found so far? RNA breaks by virus and other factors.
Never happened before? Just look at Randy's list of unexplained bee
losses.

Se we know the mechanism, we know Varroa is a vector for the problem,
we know that nosema can also be implicated, but not as strongly as
virus, and on.

For me, it all gets back to Varroa. The problem is our mindset says
that Varroa needs to get to a threshold to cause problems, But what if
the combo of pathogens out there allow a lower threshold? It all gets
back to the control of mites, since I also believe that tracheal is
implicated in the problem.

Enough. Gotta go to my volunteer job at the Hospital.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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