I'm a tad confused by this Bee-L thread in light
of the subject of the thread.

To summarize:

a)  It was reported that Vita introduced a field test
    kit (a chemical test for American Foulbrood).

b)  An initial attempt to use the test kit in the UK
    in front of a group of beekeepers did not result in
    consistently "positive" results from a known
    AFB-infected hive, but multiple tests resulted in
    at least one "positive" reading.

c)  A number of people then posted sage-like advice
    on how to visually diagnose both AFB and EFB, and
    how to tell the two apart.

d)  Others offered tales of cases where visual observations
    were inconclusive or misleading, and required great skill
    or laboratory work to confirm/deny.

Did everyone dismiss the Vita test kit as "useless" based
upon reports of difficulty in a single day on a single hive?

Isn't it semi-obvious that, even in a hive known to be
AFB-infected, any one specific small sample from the hive
might not contain any trace of AFB at all?

Isn't the really neat point that the Vita kit appears to allow
beekeepers to transcend mere "visual observations", and stop
"guessing", even if the guesses are often highly-educated
and experienced guesses?

The initial product offering is a kit said to cost 5 British pounds
each, which may sound too expensive, but when has the price of
any mass-produced item not gone down as sales volume went up?

Maybe the whole "test strip" approach is a less-than robust
packaging concept, when what might be more "accurate" as a
screening tool would be something more akin to a water-testing
kit, where a larger sample (or multiple small samples from the
same hive) could be tested.  This might involve the use of a weak
solvent to break down a comb sample into a liquid slurry, which
could then have a few drops of special chemicals added, and then
shaken [or stirred] to get a reaction and a "color change"...

Vita, like any vendor of products, may need to go through a tweaking
process before their offering can hope to meet the needs of every
beekeeper, but let's not discourage Vita so early in the process!

A short tale of how good stuff gets ignored:

  At EAS 2000 (in Maryland), I listened to a presentation of a similar
  (radical, new) concept given by a fellow who spoke with a very heavy
  accent.  It was clear that English was not his first language, and
  the audience's attention started to wander.  Some of the audience
  started to wander out, since the poor guy was making the final
  presentation before a break, and goodies awaited outside.

  But I sat and listened.  The guy had come up with a new approach to
  testing samples of bees for tracheal mites.  He would toss a bag of
  bees straight from the beekeeper into a blender, push "puree", filter
  the resulting slurry, and do some chemical tests to detect the mites.

  I was impressed.  No tedious dissections of individual bees, no peering
  into microscopes, no need to train people in how to do things "right".
  No more complicated than making a margarita.  Suddenly, tracheal mite
  testing could be done in 1/100th the time, and at a very small faction
  of the cost.

  I shook his hand when he was done, and told him that he had made a great
  contribution to the state of the art.  I don't think anyone else even
  bothered to TRY to understand what he was talking about, and I have no
  idea if anyone anywhere has adopted his technique.

But I WANT to be able to test for diseases myself, even it requires
some simple/cheap dedicated lab equipment.  I LIKE the idea of chemical
tests for diseases, pests, whatever.

Chemistry is repeatable.
"Visual observations" are not.

Hey Max!  Send some of those test kits and a non-disclosure agreement over
here to the USofA.  We'll make 'em work in the apiary, even if we have to
rip out the transmission and mount the whole concept on a junkyard salvage
chassis from a 1977 Chevy Impala.  We'll cross-license back whatever we kludge.


The group can now resume its regularly-scheduled muttering over the omens,
portents, and signs of bee diseases, comparing techniques for reading
tea-leaves,
discussing the merits of left-handed versus right-handed rune tossing, whatever.


But some of us see the promise in things like this.  Some of us want less "art"
and much more "science" in diagnosis.  Some of see such things as the only way
to increase certainty about mission-critical issues like diseases.

New technology applied to farming is never perfect out of the box,
but those who ignore new farming technology tend to not be farming
for very long thereafter.


                        jim

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