Has this effect (non-robbing of post-CCD honey stores) ever been
investigated or replicated, and if so what were the conclusions?"
We agree, and that's why we started by investigating the chemistry inside
the hive, looking for a repellent chemical.
We found lots of things, but the only new ones (compared to our decade of
chem sampling of volatiles inside a hive) were either miticides or
derivatives of miticides AND for the east coast particularly, lots of PDB (used to
protect comb from wax moth.
So, we extended our chemistry by looking at proteins with the Army. We
found lots of things, including those of plants, other insects, the bee, AND
the pathogens in the bees (Nosema, common bee viruses, and a DNA virus
most similar to Iridescent viruses). The DNA virus might explain the absence
of wax moth and hive beetles. It just a hypothesis, but the iridescent DNA
virus that is most similar to the DNA virus that we found is a generalist
in terms of its hosts. It thrives in wax moth and can kill other insects
such as beetles.
Unfortunately, USDA experts/reviewers discount our evidence. They tell us
in their reviews of our proposals that DNA viruses don't occur in US bees
- despite the fact that in addition to the Army's results, Camazine found
an Iridescent virus in varroa mites in a collapse of colonies in the NE in
the 90s, and they tell us that Nosema isn't really a problem. They hold to
the idea that CCD is a result of cumulative stressors, not any one (or Two)
stressors (Pathogens) and they view our hypothesis of Nosema/virus as a
reasonable suspect for the cause of CCD as unlikely, and as such, not worthy
of funding.
So, we haven't had the funds to follow up in the manner we'd like.
although we're still working on this with student help and with some support from
PAm - and that study has suffered from several technical problems, but
we're slowly getting it done.
As some of the readers on this list know, when studying pathogens, one has
to be able to find them when you want to test (one year Nosema ceranae
disappeared), and the DNA virus proved difficult to extract - took us two years
to get the method down and collect sufficient material for the testing.
Then our biosafety folks at the U held us up for 6 months - afraid of the
DNA viirus and potential release to the environment. But, we've finally got
all of that ironed out and are moving ahead.
All of this means we're inching our way along this path, which is
frustrating, especially if we are correct in our hypothesis.
Jerry
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