Dean
You have sort of hijacked this topic. We were talking about banning Clothianidin and you brought up your favorite topic, gut microbes. Maybe we should start a new thread? 

You stated: 
> The Evans study I posted showed a 21 times increase in some antibacterial RNA

Evans actually says:
> These experiments show diet-based changes in RNA levels of the gene encoding abaecin, an antimicrobial peptide implicated in the honey bee disease response. 

Calling it "antibacterial RNA" is a bit of an oversimplification at best. The point of the article is that feeding non-pathenogenic bacteria (pro-biotics) may stimulate the immune system. Priming the immune system of organisms in this way hasn't yet been proved to have long term benefit. 

Evans:
> both the colony level impacts of probiotic feeding on disease and the mechanisms by which large numbers of bees could be exposed to probiotics remain to be determined.

Maybe more work has been done since this was published in 2004? Actually, he writes in 2010:

> There is likely to be an interesting tradeoff between favoring the growth of beneficial microbes and avoiding conditions that allow more rampant growth by pathogens. Regardless, in bees, as in other insects, an understanding of disease is complicated by a need to understand interactive affects between various host microbes.

In his final recommendation he suggests:
> wide-ranging transport of bees, even across international boundaries and often to high-density meeting grounds, favors the sharing of parasites and pathogens.  Changing management strategies to reflect these factors, where feasible, can be complimentary to efforts to breed and maintain bee lineages showing natural resistance.

The management change that is implied here is to stop transporting bees from state to state to pollinate. Is this realistic? Sort of like saying, if you didn't go to work every day in a crowded office, you wouldn't catch every bug that makes the rounds. True, but some of us have to work for a living, in crowded offices. 

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