Hello Jerry & All,
I only offer an opinion here to try and be helpful. Not to appear an expert
but I will say :

What you call CCD I was part of a private look at over 3 years ago involving
a beekeeper running over 40,000 hives. I was involved  to give an opinion
and look over the test results. I spent three  days on location.

 None of what I am about to say was
ever made public nor was the USDA-ARS brought in.

Simply because it was (and is) a varroa /PMS problem.

>  Also, there is a  clip of me pointing to a bee with damaged wings, but
that doesn't mean that  we commonly saw this symptom.
Bottom line:

Our conclusion 3 years ago and backed up by out of country testing (
U.K.)was the losses were caused by failure of varroa controls to maintain
over a 90% varroa control.

The test results showed 3 virus present.

We came to the conclusion that the virus causing the problems was easily
transferred through the hive, killed the bees fast and the bees flew out to
die. A healthy hive could crash in two weeks.

Our focus was on the evidence before us both on bees and on comb. Not some
new mystery CCD.

1. Varroa was present

2.  virus was present

My conclusion was the virus was a form of bee paralysis virus ( test from
U.K. confirmed common form by electron microscope) . I also believe that if
bees from CCD colonies were  subjected to the experiments of Burnside (1945)
or Bailey (1963) the same result would be had.

The symptoms of bee paralysis virus as published in literature such as
afflicted with a trembling motion, wings disjointed, abdomens distended and
general ability to fly were not observed.

The kill was different as in past varroa issues.

However DWV was also present so we did see some DWV symptoms which muddied
the waters.

However Burnside demonstrated when filtrates of bpv virus were sprayed on
healthy bees it caused symptoms & death.

I also caution the above research is very dated which we argued over. Myself
and another beekeeper (wiser than me) had heated disagreements on the virus
issue. His secretary knocked on the door a few times .

Doctors will say many times the symptoms to not fit the known symptoms for a
disease and when happens all the doctors training is useless.

New research from Penn State demonstrates the way virus is passed from hive
to hive, flower to flower  and bee to bee. Also a queen with virus can pass
the virus on through her eggs.


Penn State also had quite a bit about about virus contaminated comb. Which I
posted on BEE-L earlier.


> We try to screen to be sure that the problem is
not simply mites/PMS.

Varroa poop in the cells of a deadout is a good indicator the hive had a
very high varroa load .

 If this virus (possible yet unidentified ) does not effect the larva but
only effects the adult bees then you would not see signs of PMS.

Burnsides research was years ahead of his time. Bailey was not convinced
(personal conversation with the U.K.) that you could take a bee with bee
paralysis virus. Grind the bee up and spray on a healthy bee and see the bee
become infected and DIE. So Bailey recreated the earlier experiments of
Burnside in 1963 and got the same result.

Most virus research is dated. We need new research done to confirm the Penn
State research and also to isolate exactly which of the virus is the big
problem.

The results from the U.K. on bee samples simply confirmed three *NAMED*
virus present. I would expect under an electron microscope if a new virus
was present it would have been found so:
I can only assume one of the three known virus present has had changes in
the commonly known symptoms. I know my hypothesis is taking a big leap but
at least consider since I have taken the time to type.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

"what we don't know is so vast it makes what we do know seem absurd" Bob
Harrison

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