> DWV does not grow within the mite. 

Yes, the mites need not be infected to 
be carriers. The mites are merely spreading 
the virus more thoroughly than it would spread 
unaided.  Is that "news" to anyone?    Likewise,
I don't have high blood pressure, but I am often
accused of being a "carrier", and giving it to
others. :)

> Instead, the infection has been found only inside 
> the gut of the varroa, suggesting that the mite 
> has merely eaten it from the bodies of bees already 
> infected. 

Again, not "news" at all.  It seems that the reporter
was charged with doing an update on "CCD", and ran
into this work, and neglected even minimal homework
on prior art in the area.  Breathless prose aside,
I don't see where the paper at issue moved the ball
down the field even one additional yard.

> There must be more to the varroa-DWV story than this.  
> In my bees, there is a clear correlation between mite 
> population and incidence of young bees with deformed wings.

For sure.  Visible DWV is one of the big danger signs 
that forces one to give bad news to novices about pulling
the colony out of production treating ASAP.

Worse still, one sees it in the photos taken by those 
who neither monitor nor treat their bees because they 
bought magic beans in the form of foundation with
smaller cells, or a top-bar hive, or a fogger that goes 
"whoosh" and looks like a prop out of the "Alien" movie 
trilogy.  

And whatever happened to all the people who were 
so convinced that fogging would save us all that
they called us names for daring to want to see some 
data? Why is it that the current crop of true 
believers can't learn from even that cautionary tale? 

a) Is it is because we don't draw the parallels often 
   enough or clearly enough out of politeness?

b) Or is it the social constraints of groups like this
   listserv, bee associations, and "the press", where
   everyone feels obligated to give a "fair hearing"
   to BOTH sides of all arguments, not just the one 
   that happens to be supported by the data and facts.
   (To contrast, funny how my physics discussion group 
   feels no need to be "fair" to the idea that Alchemy 
   has as much to offer as chemistry, and none of my
   pals in medicine think that the "Stork Theory"
   is as credible as the "Pregnancy Theory".)

Why is it that some of the former fogger users have 
moved on to the new types of magic beans?  Can't
they make the connection from  personal experience?

Maybe the problem is that we aren't being tough ENOUGH 
on the crackpots.  Maybe what is needed is a "burn
the hive" protocol for excessive varroa infestations,
just as is the rule of thumb for excessive foulbrood
infestations. At some point, poorly managed hives are
just as much a hazard to unsuspecting nearby beekeepers
as pesticide misuse would be.  Why is one offense 
blameless and the other a violation of federal law,
given that most of our hives for the most part recover 
from even serious pesticide kills?


But back on track here - Yes, of course the viruses 
can spread to some extent without varroa - how else 
would they have existed at all for varroa to spread 
them around more completely?

If there is any doubt in anyone's mind on this
point, here are a few classic papers:

The Evans/Chen paper "Horizontal and Vertical 
Transmission of Viruses in he Honey Bee, Apis 
Mellifera" (Journal of Invertebrate Pathology, 
July 2006) should have removed all doubt that 
viruses exist at low levels in bees, and that 
varroa merely spread the viruses ubiquitous, 
spreading them from bee to bee.

There's also "Prevalence and Seasonal Variations 
of Six Bee Viruses in Apis mellifera L. and Varroa 
destructor Mite Populations in France" (Applied
and Environmental Microbiology, Dec 2004 by 
Tentcheva, Gauthier, et al)
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/reprint/70/12/7185.pdf

Which tends to illustrate that a wide variety
of viruses are common at low levels even without
significant varroa problems.

And for the specific case of DWV, the paper "Localization 
of deformed wing virus infection in queen and drone Apis 
mellifera L" (Fievet, Tentcheva, et al in Virology J, 
March 2006)

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1475838

shows us that the "vertical" transmission of this virus is
quite possible through the "infected egg" scenario.

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