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In a message dated 9/19/2010 10:00:50 A.M. Mountain Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
In fact I am criticizing that very lack of good and
precisely criteria.
Stongly agree, we've done nothing to improve on this, and the Williams
paper doesn't provide any new insights, maybe just confuses things more with
statements such as:
"CCD, is characterized by the rapid disappearance of adult bees from
colonies containing brood and food stores but lacking damaging levels of
parasitic Varroa destructor mites or Nosema microsporidians."
its the .... but lacking.... that bothers me. I do agree that varroa per
se is not the common factor to CCD - we, like others, have seen CCD colonies
with every level of varroa from outrageously high to non-detectable. So,
you can have CCD with damaging levels of varroa and without damaging levels
of varroa - and since I've seen high levels of mites cause bees to walk
out of colonies in mass, it may in some cases be difficult to ascertain
whether colony abandonment is due to uncontrolled varroa or whatever is causing
CCD.
Nosema on the other hand seems to be common to all CCD colonies - we've
seen this, as have most other investigators. Whether the Nosema levels are
or are not at damaging levels - I haven't seen the data that clearly defines
a threshold. Obviously Higes and others in Spain are not likely to agree
with the 'lacking'.... Nosema criteria.
I view this amended description of CCD as confusing things, it may be
newer, but its NOT an improvement.
The original description was restricted to defining CCD by signs
(symptoms) and was carefully called a disorder to avoid preconceptions that it was a
disease (implies cause).
This 'new' definition mixes signs with causes, yet we don't know the
cause, so how can we discount mites and nosema?
They may play a role - I suspect as co-factors. I don't (and this is MY
OPINION) think that either mites or nosema alone cause CCD, but neither do I
see the evidence behind the varroa/mite addition to the CCD definition
(although I realize they were hedging with the 'damaging' - but what is
damaging?).
Jerry
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