VC>From: Vince Coppola <[log in to unmask]>
  >Date:         Wed, 31 Jan 1996 22:20:07 -0500
  >Subject:      Re: New Honeybee Virus?
 
  >Has anyone observed PMS in colonies with low or normal varroa levels?
 
Hi Beekeepers,
 
Don't know if you have read this, but if not you may find it of
interest. From my own experience with bees and given as at my last talk
with at the American Beekeeping Federation at Las Vegas Jan. 1989 I
think. As for "PMS" thats pure USDA government regulatory bee
science... And in my opinion a real example of "BS" and not Bee Science.
 
                      ttul Andy-
 
l l This l l  l l is l l from now, 40+ years l l keeping bees....
 
Successful keeping of bees in the ninety's will require several beekeeper
skills or inputs. Two of great importance are:
 
1.  Beekeepers ability to locate his bees in quality pasture.
2.  Beekeepers ability to renew his colonies that die for what
    ever reason.
 
    In 1990 about 900,000 beehives will be located in California almond
orchards by beekeepers to take advantage of the cash rents being paid by
the almond growers. This number of hives represents a doubling of the
resident populations of bee hives in California and about one third of
the bees in the U.S. And probably is more then half of the hives that can
be made migratory. Demonstrating beekeeper ability to relocate bees for
anticipated cash rents, comparable to about fifty pounds of honey
production.
 
    Due to the poor quality and quantity of bee pasture in California,
400,000 of these hives will be relocated out of state for the summer
honey flows.
 
    Beekeepers continue to demonstrate great skills and expertise in
relocating their bees to high quality pastures in spite of special
interest groups who have continentally tried to restrict bee movement by
various regulations and quarantines, with the motivations of restricting
competition for bee pasture, creating jobs and income for the regulating
industry, and fulfilling the vision by a few scientists of great loss
from perceived pests.{Our greatest threat is being made financially
impotent.}
 
    The ability of beekeepers to renew or replace colonies that die out,
or become so poor as to be a liability, is a serious problem that can be
met by applying rule number one: Keep your bees in high quality pasture.
Of course this is not always practical. The second best solution is to
keep part of your bees in high quality pasture. If all of the above
fails, then you must be able to replace your loss.
 
    Annual losses under conditions that prevail in California today can
approach thirty percent, and in some seasons exceed that. Renewal of
these colonies by purchasing Nucs, or making divisions, will depend on
the individual beekeepers economic condition and the timing of his first
surplus honey flows. [Beekeepers with dependable early pasture, such as
citrus, will not be anxious to divide hives, and will purchase nucs if
available.]
 
    The decline in colony populations of bees experienced by beekeepers
in California during the winter of 1987-88 is not a new phenomenon, and
has been reported by beekeepers in California and elsewhere [world-wide]
for over 100 years. It is my opinion based on thirty five years of
observations and lots of library research, that this dramatic loss of
bees will continue, and at times we may even have more frequent episodes
of epic, unexplained losses of bees.
.
 
                    MY REPORT ON S-A-D AND B-A-D BEES
                     from 35 years field experience
 
    Stress Accelerated Decline [SAD] and Bee Immune Deficiency [BAD]  are
not new spectacles in managing honeybees, or is it even limited to
honeybees. They have been described in the popular and scientific
literature for over one hundred years, by both beekeepers and biologists.
 
    The SAD or BAD condition in bees in the United States has been called
by many names in years past. Such as Isle of Wight Disease,
Afro-hereditary Disease, fall, winter, or spring Collapse or Decline, and
Disappearing Disease. The cause has been diagnosed by biologists as
everything from poor nutrition to pest infestations. Such as the TRACHEAE
MITE, which is at this time is the populace view. It is my opinion, based
on my own experience with bees, that all of the above and every other
natural and unnatural condition that afflicts bees, that can be
identified as stressful can be made scape goat for SAD or BAD bees.
{Including weather; hot, cold, wet or dry; pesticides; and management;
good or bad.}
 
    Most of this speculation only leads to SAD BEEKEEPERS. No workable
solutions are forthcoming from the speculators and much time and money is
wasted on popular cures. {redistributing beekeepers wealth} Leaving
beekeepers to face the realities of a silent spring, when fifty per cent
or more of their hives are quiet of humming bees, after treatment, or no
treatments. And I add, much to the disappointment of Almond growers who
expected more, and in some cases were guaranteed more then SAD bees can
deliver, which at times make them MAD.
 
    I have chosen to call this malady of my bees, SAD or BAD, as I
believe that best describes the condition of the bees and the way I feal
when I have to work with them. And I have not been alone in this work.
The SAD or BAD condition of bees is a world wide problem and has been
reported in all areas of the world that bees can be kept in large
numbers. It is not restricted to any one area, and appears without
warning. It can affect beekeepers large or small without regards to
experience or politicks. Because it may not reappear in the same region
season after season, it is hard to study and much is not known of its
cause or circumstances which lead to its appearance...
 
    In my own years among the bees I have had SAD or BAD bees many times.
{a confession} Some who know me will tell you that it is because of my
own {benign neglect} style of management...I prefer to refer to my
approach to management, as a more natural, relaxed system of bee
behavioral modification. In which I change my life style according to the
needs and production of my bees. {Admittedly my life style has matched my
bees and lately has been near or slightly above the privileged poor, in
some part due to my own SAD bees.} Which may qualify me as an expert on
SAD bees.
.    About 1960 I had my first experience with SAD bees. They were
diagnosed as having Nosema. So as soon as I could afford it, I treated
and was cured...Several years later I again had SAD bees, since I was
treating for Nosema, it could only be caused by a bacteria, like EFB.
Because at the time I was using sulfa [legal then] to control AFB, I
changed to Terramycin. {The cure again was spontaneous.....}
 
    A few years later, now using enlightened treatments for Nosema, AFB,
and EFB, my bees again were SAD. It could only be from pesticides. No
antidotes were known, but I did get a government Pesticide
Indemnification Payment, or PIP... Again several years later more SAD
bees, still treating for Nosema, AFB, and EFB, but no more PIP's... SO I
stopped going to summer pollination. {The surest way I know of gaining
pesticide damage.} And since have tried to limit the time my bees are in
the crop growing areas where pesticides are used. [Not a easy job in
California, where even in the most remote areas some perceived threat
from a pest can bring mass aerial attacks with pesticides, by one
government agency or another, or for that matter in the most populated
areas, reference resent and continuing attacks on Med Fly and other
perceived pests in the major population centers.]
 
    Several years later more SAD bees. Still treating for Nosema, AFB,
EFB, no government PIP's, {no summer pollination rentals}, and very short
honey crops, due to droughts, and BAD, SAD bees. NOW I HAVE MITES??  This
time I will be dammed if I am going to put a pesticide into my beehives.
Its bad enough to be putting artificial honey, {corn syrups}, pollens,
drugs and antibiotics in my bees food chain. {Personally, I have not the
resources for one more recommended cure, such as menthol or what ever.}
 
    In the spring 1989, more BAD, SAD bees, but not as BAD as 1988. At
this time, [Jan 1990], looking forward to the spring, I do not expect to
have many BAD SAD hives. Due to the fact that my bees did not show any
symptoms last fall.
 
    {I have tried to outline, in capsule, what I have seen in the thirty
five years of keeping bees. I left much out, including Chalk brood,
vitamins, proteins, salts and more to fill a book.
    Now what did I see, or thought I saw....that makes my bees SAD or
BAD?}
 
    SAD or BAD bees do show symptoms prior to their collapse. These hives
appear to be strong productive hives after a honey flow or extended
broodrearing period. In the fall or early winter, in the area I keep my
bees. They can change in a very short time leaving boxes full of honey
and empty of bees.
 
Two symptoms that have repeatedly shown up in my bees, in the late summer
or fall before the decline is increasing numbers of black shinny or old
looking bees on the combes. [Hairless bees] The unexplained appearance of
numbers of dead, dying, or crawling bees in my bee yards is the second
symptom I believe indicates I am experiencing the effects of SAD or BAD.
{One can never rule out pesticides, but when you find these symptoms in
bees kept ten to twenty miles from the crops pesticides are used on, the
likelihood of pesticide damage is reduced.}
.
 
    For years I have seen my bees crawl out of my hives and die, not only
in the fall, but at other times of the year, with no detectable pesticide
use, or in some cases even residues found. {I have also seen too many of
my hives damaged and killed by pesticides and do not want to minimize the
damage they have caused me and others and the real threat they continue
to be for all bees.}
 
    {Nothing has been more devastating to me personally then the loss I
have had from the regulated, [proper and legal], use of pesticides in
California. Many times miles from my apiaries. Pesticide damage and loss
is far greater by a factor of one thousand or more then all other bee
losses put together. Or simply stated: for every dollar lost due to bee
disease, pests, and predators; one thousand dollars are lost due to
pesticides used on crops miles away from the bees hive. There has never
been a pesticide loss to bees that could not have been avoided with out
any action by the beekeeper.}
 
    The symptoms of SAD or BAD bees I have seen in my own bees has been
seen by other beekeepers from all over the world and have been identified
as indicators of various viruses that are found in the bee. This includes
bees from dwindling colonies from California.
 
    Some of the common ones are: Paralysis, [dead bees, black
like robbers, dislocated wings]; Sacbrood, [yellow larva, shot gun
brood], and many more.
 
    Advanced cases of BAD SAD bees can be identified by their lack of
ability to use sugar syrup fed in gravity feeders. Pools of sugar syrup
will be found on the ground around these SAD hives. A satisfactory but
expensive weed killer. And when moving these SAD bees down the freeway on
a clear star bright night fellow travelers who pass you will have their
wipers on, and at times make gestures to you as they pass, sometime
mistaken as the international sign of friendship.
 
    One other symptom worth mention is one reported by beekeepers with
normal olfactory development. An odor best described as between fermented
honey and mouse urine. Both recognizable by experienced beekeepers. Since
many of the hives are full of honey and too weak to keep out mice, I have
without much scientific research concluded that fermenting honey and mice
are responsible for the odors detected. But this could be a real symptom,
and I wonder if others have detected this odor?
 
    {I one thought, because I kept my bees in the cotton growing areas
that the cause of SAD bees was associated with cotton growing or cotton
honey. Since so many bees that show SAD and BAD symptoms have never been
in the cotton I soon discounted this as a cause.}
 
 
                               BEE VIRUSES
 
    The major problem with identifying viruses in bees is that few bee
scientific types are doing this kind of work and fewer in the U.S.
Requests by beekeepers for viruses screens or checks made to public
agencies are given very low priority. Most bees can be found to have
Nosema and its easy and cheap to look for, so that is what beekeepers are
told their bees have when they ask for a viruses check. Few ask anyway.
As mites become more prevalent they are superseding Nosema  as a stock
diagnosis for bees sent to public agencies for study. It really does not
matter that much because so little is known of bees viruses and no cures
are known. Over the years enough samples of bees from California and the
U.S. have been checked in European labs and found to have viruses of one
type or another that you can feel confident that they are present in your
bees and surely if the symptoms are.
 
    {For a hobby I feed colored hybrid carp called, KOI, and find them
interesting and somewhat comparable to bees in that they have pests,
predators and diseases; like my bees. They also suffer greatly from
stress and viral diseases. Its worth quoting from the "TETRA ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF KOI" a passage on Viral Diseases.}:QUOTE
 
"Viruses are probably among the most successful organisms ever to have
evolved and, apart from other viruses, can infect all other living
organisms, including bacteria. Their structure is one of elegant
simplicity,.....The life cycle might also be described as simple compared
with other organisms.....The infecting virus literally 'injects' its own
genetic material into a single cell of the host. Once inside the cell,
the viral genetic material takes command of the cell's genetic material
and causes it to produce more viruses. Very simply, it may proceed in one
or two way. The virus may cause the host cell to mass produce other virus
particles that are released when the host cell ruptures, allowing the
virus particles to infect other cells and organisms. Alternatively, the
virus can incorporate itself into the host cell's genetic material and
may have an initial infective stage causing more virus particles to be
produced. The virus then enter a non-infectious state during which the
particle remains in the host cell's genetic material but is inactive.
STRESS OR OTHER DISEASES CAN THEN CAUSE THIS TYPE OF VIRUS TO BECOME
INFECTIVE AGAIN. A classic example of this type of viral infection is the
herpes virus which causes cold sores in man.{and women}
 
    One of the sinister aspects of any virus is that its genetic material
is not very stable; it mutates very easily, giving rise to new' viral
strains. The perfect example of this are the viruses that cause
influenza, with different types appearing apparently each winter to
plague us. There is no treatment or cure for any viral disease.
Prevention of viral disease using vaccination is the only method
currently available....." END QUOTE
.
  The realities of bee viruses are that there are no quick fixes or magic
bullets. Viruses are present in most bees and they don't show symptoms or
dramatic effects every year. I believe that these viruses do effect bees
each year to some degree.
 
    The effects or degree of damage that viruses have on bees may be
determined by the condition, number of healthy young bees raised prior to
the slowing down or stopping of broodrearing and the time before it
starts again. The quality of the last bees reared may be just as
important as the numbers. Bees reared on low quality diets may look
normal and be in great numbers, but not have the ability to properly feed
brood; or rear bees that have shortened longevity. Some of the poor
pollens that I have been able to associate with my own SAD bees, are
grass pollens; such as rice, and many of the water grasses associated
with rice. Corn, milo, and fall tarweed pollens also. I am sure that most
any area his its own problem pollens. It is well to remember that the
greater the mixture of pollen the less problem with SAD or BAD bees, both
as a cause and cure. As a rule when large amounts of pollen accumulate in
the combs a problem can be associated with that pollen. One example of
this can be experienced in the prolonged fall tarweed flows, large
amounts of tarweed pollen can be found in the hives and brood rearing
stops in spite of good broodrearing conditions. I have also seen this
same condition in early October coastal manzanita flows. In this case
the lack of pollen was evident. Poor pollen and no pollen give similar
symptoms...
 
    The stress of nectar collection is easy to understand when no
broodrearing is taking place. The bees work themselves to death, so we
say. The results may be full boxes of honey and KNOT HEADS. [KNOT HEADS,
are small clusters of bees in the  advanced stages of BAD, just prior to
death or when a hive becomes a DEAD OUT.]
 
    GOOD forage conditions do not included over crowded almond orchards.
The main reason that so many SAD and BAD bees that are KNOT HEADS at the
start of the almond bloom are DEAD OUTS shortly after its over, is that
almond pollen by itself is not a good food for bees. {The generation of
beekeepers that I learned from did not regularly go to the almonds in the
spring even though they lived close to the almond growing regions,
because their bees did better elsewhere. Until the almond acreage
dramatically increased and beekeepers started taking advantage of the
increased need for bees, did beekeepers who live out of the immediate
growing area start moving to the almonds, for the CASH rent.}
 
    BEES REQUIRE a balanced diet and to get this almost always require
more then one kind of pollen. In pollinating almonds, {and other crops},
so many bees are concentrated in a relative small area, that many hives
will not have a chance to collect pollen from more then the orchard or
orchard floor. And leave no doubt that bee viruses have a better
opportunity to spread from hive to hive, as when near a million hives are
concentrated in a limited area for almond pollination. Furthermore some
research has shown almond pollen, or something in it, may retard brood
production and much problems in getting large numbers of queen cells
accepted by cell builders is reported during the peak almond bloom in
areas where the predominant pollen is from almonds.
.
    The stress of poor diets, the presence of pathological viruses and
the time between the stopping of production of healthy bees and the
starting of the production of healthy bees determines the effects of BAD
and SAD on your bees. If the last bees reared were not healthy and the
first bees reared are not healthy, the hive will suffer BADly and  SADly
may become a DEADOUT.
 
    I have watched my own BAD SAD bees for many years, and seen them go
from what we refer to as "BALL BUSTERS", {after home run hitters in
baseball}, in the fall, to a queen and twenty queen in the spring. Then
to DEADOUTS, many times with supers full of honey and sometimes both
pollen and honey. In 1988 I witnessed for the first time, when I popped
the lid off a hive, earlier identified as SAD, the queen take wing from a
cluster of twenty bees and disappear in the flight of bees from other
hives in the yard. A DEADOUT was born...
 
    As for reported cures, it has been reported that feeding sugar syrup,
and sugar syrup with the antibiotic AUREOMYCIN may have some positive
effect on some of the viruses. I can not report great success with either
in my own experience. {Note: AUREOMYCIN, HCL, or chlortetracycline is not
approved in the U.S. for feeding to bees.} But I think that they should
be examined for effect on prevalent be viruses. Reducing the effects of
bee viruses may be similar to EFB. Once you see the symptoms the damage
has been done. For EFB, the TM must be present before the bees start to
brood to get the best results, which is no EFB. If feeding sugar syrup or
syrup with antibiotic are necessary to prevent damage from viruses, it
may be necessary to do it in the late summer or fall to be effective.
Once your bees are SAD or BAD, feeding them is the same as putting three
or more of them together, the end results is one SAD hive and three or
more DEADOUTS. Adding healthy bees or young queens to SAD hives is better
spent on healthy hives and used to make up DEADOUTS or NUCS.
 
    {Time and good pasture is the only proven way a beekeeper now can
overcome the effects of SAD on bees. NOT MUCH HELP IF ALL YOUR HIVES ARE
SAD.}
 
    It is not my desire to minimize the effects of other pathogens of
bees including pests, predators, chemicals, and other natural disasters.
All and any stress can result in large numbers of SAD BAD DEADOUTS or
DINKS. I do believe that each one of us has a responsibility to keep our
bees healthy within the bonds of practicability. [We must always remember
that very few creations are not afflicted by pest, predators, and
disease.] The results of so many BAD, SAD bees the last few years has
been a lot of SAD beekeepers looking for a quick fix to a very complex
problem, KEEPING HEALTHY productive bees. I do not think the answer will
necessarily be through modern chemistry, and I am certain it will not be
by government decree, that:
 
                   "ALL BEES WILL BE HEALTHY OR DEAD."
.
 
     Unlike others, I do not believe feral bees or hobby beekeepers will
disappear, [leaving open pastures for the enlightened commercial
beekeeper], because of any pathogen or pest we know of in today's world.
 
    If the environment for what ever reason will not support feral
populations of honeybees, {or hobby beekeepers}, then it will be too
hostile to support commercial beekeepers no matter how enlightened their
management systems. No area in the world that can support honeybees has
had them disappear after they have been successively introduced.
 
               {}Commercial beekeepers have disappeared{}
 
 
   SUMMERY. My bees at numerous times over thirty five years have went
from BALL BUSTERS to BAD or SAD. I don't have good pasture much of the
time for my bees. {Yours always has looked better.} You may be able to
recognize the symptoms of viruses in your bees before they look SAD and
smell BAD, by looking for large numbers of black shinny, hairless bees in
your hives. {Before you experience the unexplained appearance of dead
bees in front of your hives or dramatic declines in hive populations.}
Based on very little scientific research, my own personal observations
and much practical experience of others. Sugar syrup fed to bees in the
fall, that for what ever reason have been reared or pastured under
stress, may reduce the number of apparently healthy hives that become
SAD, BAD, DINKS, or DEADOUTS. {Other beekeepers from California to Texas,
and elsewhere, report that heavy feeding of sugar syrup, two gallons and
more, as soon as their bees are unloaded from being trucked from summer
pastures, has greatly reduced their experiences with SAD bees. This
should be investigated by our bee biologists.}
 
     Beekeepers need a public, non regulatory, non political lab, that
bees can be sent to for examination, not only for common pests and
diseases, but also the viruses. Samples of bees sent in for testing
should be routinely exhamined for more then the popular threats of day.
{Both the regulatory and much of the scientific community appears to be
suffering from tunnel vision. With no greater porpoise in life then being
the first kid on the block to find or identify the first exotic pest of
one kind or another.} Its time to accept the fact that bees have and are
affected by pests, diseases, and parasites and that any single affliction
may be of little harm alone but in combination may be fatal. We must be
able to recognize these fatal combinations if we are to have any strategy
for thretment. Beekeepers in the U.S. have had much time and experience
treating pests, and yet hives treated for pests,{and made free of them},
continue to die. This seems to suggest that something other then the
pests being treated is causing the decline in our bees, and maybe we
should reserve treatments of pests for extreme cases, and look for, and
at other pathogens of bees.
.
CLOSE TO THE END
 
    {When I started keeping bees as an apprentice beekeeper or a
beekeepers LOUSE, about 1954, to a generation of beekeeper now past.
Their average production per hive was three times today's average. A
family could make a good middle class living from five hundred hives
including a new car every three years or so and collage education's
for the kids. Annual losses of bees in excess of ten per cent was above
normal and indicated a poor beekeeper. The normal replacement of bees
today in California is thirty percent approaching fifty. Beekeepers with
BAD, SAD, bees in the spring of 1989 did have fifty percent and higher
losses. Replacing these deadouts, a challenge to the best beekeeper, is
not lessened by not knowing if after replacing them they are not going
to be SAD by the end of the season}....{    andy     }
 
UPDATE (Jan 8, 1989)
 
    As I try to polish my long winded talk, beekeepers in California are
reporting:
 
     Bees that are on the mid-winter coastal honey flows are not showing
signs of dwindling. Bees from out of state and in state locations that
are wintering in the interior central valley are dwindling in some yards.
The weather in the valley has been overcast, foggy and cool, with very
little bee activity or flight. On the coast it has been warm and dry.
Most colonies appear to be bigger then last winter.
 
    Thirty nine apiaries, mostly semi-yards, located from northern to
southern California,  have been found with Varroa mites at very low
levels and are being forced to treat at very inflated costs. Some of the
yards being treated have been treated two and three times since last
winter. Twenty per cent of the 6,000 colonies being treated have not been
out of state in 1989. The percentage of instate hives found with mites is
greater then the out of state bees coming into California. California
beekeepers have made several runs on the chemical product TAC-TIC
(amatraiz) to protect themselves from the threat of high costs of forced
treatments by the CDFA.
 
 
    {Opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author, me, who
has no regulatory job to protect, chemical products to sell, and should
not be confused with any scientific paper created by any Doctor or PHD
(POP) who must publish or parish. Thank you for reading this and may you
prosper with me to spite all those who perceive that our end is near.}
---
 ~ QMPro 1.53 ~ ... Where the wild bee never flew,