Bob writes:
> In my opinion a couple years of CCD team looking into virus and CCD is not going to change decades or research and experiments by Bailey, Ball & Carrick.

Dear Bob,
Science never comes to a standstill, but new things constantly are
being discovered. I am sure Drs. Ball and Carreck would agree that new
revelations can easily overturn decades of study. Your recommendation
to control varroa, while sound, is not the whole story. Viruses may
have been associated with varroa initially, but they now may be a
force on their own. Besides, who has ever controlled varroa? Knocked
it back, perhaps, but it can hardly said to be "controlled".

From a 2007 article:

> Viral infections are the least understood of honey bee diseases, due to the lack of information on the mechanisms underlying potential disease outbreaks. Few data are available on their different modes of spread, transmission and persistence. -- Ribière, et al (2007) "Spread of Chronic bee paralysis virus in bee faeces"

Chen writes:

> In the field, honey bee colonies can suffer from multiple virus infections without showing obvious pathological symptoms, thereby confounding diagnoses. A rapid and accurate diagnosis for virus infection, therefore, is a critical component of honey bee disease surveillance and control programs.

> Our results demonstrated that mixed virus infections in honey bees are quite widespread in nature, as we detected mixed infections of BQCV, DWV, KBV, and SBV in adult worker bees and bee brood. Although virus coinfections have long been recognized in plants and other animals, information on mixed virus infections in honey bees has accumulated very slowly over the last decade.

> Despite the fact that honey bees can harbor multiple virus infections simultaneously, gaps still exist in our current knowledge of the effects of such mixed infections on pathogenic processes in honey bees.

> Moreover, it is not known whether mixed virus infections could lead to genetic recombination between coexisting viruses and whether such *recombination could result in the emergence of new viruses*.

Chen, et al (2004) "Multiple virus infections in the honey bee and
genome divergence of honey bee viruses"

Finally, Brenda Ball stated in 2004:

> After the turbulent years of dramatic colony losses that accompanied the arrival of varroa, have we now reached a relatively stable situation again where both mite and predominant virus can be managed, or could the decline in certain types of virus leave a niche open for opportunistic invaders? Only time will tell, but we should certainly be alert and prepared for more trouble with viruses.

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