> > But I've never known or seen a hive collapse (or dwindle) as a result of
> virus loads, DWV in particular, or have the virus levels grow
> exponentially, independent of having excessive mite loads.
>
> This keeps coming up. How would you know?


Simple Pete. Because I've never seen it happen. In the past 15 years I've
never had a hive suddenly collapse (independent of confirmed pesticide
kills, queen failure, nosema, or other known issues) that show typical
virus symptoms and mite levels were *consistently *below 2% infestation
rate over the previous 5 month time period.

You gave an example where you indicated you "controlled mite levels" but
still lost up to 80% of the colonies in fall (before winter). What exactly
does that mean? What was your infestation rate before treatment? What was
it after treatment? Can you say, definitively, that all of those kills had
NOTHING to do with varroa, and ONLY had to do with high virus levels
COMPLETELY INDEPENDENTLY OF MITES?

I'm not saying viruses aren't a problem. I'm not saying viruses can't
spread without mites. I know they can. I'm saying I've never seen any of
the known mite related viruses spread independent of high mite
infestations. I haven't read anyone indicate that it happens.

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