All I could find at the link Pete provided was the abstract so my knowledge of the study is limited. However yet again the authors are assuming that varroa feed on, and thus deplete hemolymph. That assumption has been strongly challenged by Sammy Ramsey's work that shows that in fact varroa are feeding on fat body. Also the observation that the predigestion of tissue at the wound site is a likely cause of the viral spread. So artificially removing hemolymph and then observing a spike in viral replication is questionable. I am not aware of widespread naturally occurring injury to bees that result in significant loss of hemolymph. T-mite perhaps but that has not been a real problem for a decade or more. Are there others that I don't know about?
Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA
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