>Actually, I thought their conclusions were worthy of notice, regardless of
their command of "scientific English".

I wasn't concerned about their command of English, what concerned me was
that they drew dubious conclusions apparently without supportive evidence.

>although we believe that viruses and N. ceranae synergistically played the
most important role.

This could well be, and I am currently doing individual bee dissections to
see whether this was the case in the collapses that I recently observed.  I
will then have actual evidence to support an opinion.  Higes, who is a very
competent scientist, did not observe virions under electron microscopy of
bee guts from his collapsing colonies.  Although this observation is very
surprising to me, it is actual data, not mere conjecture.

>
> > The overall procedure of transportation from the one foraging area to
> another, along with the corresponding environmental changes encountered by
> the bees, are undoubtedly stress factors for bees.
>

There is nothing "undoubtable" that moving bees from one foraging area to
another is stressful.  In fact, data from Zachary Huang suggests otherwise.
In my own experience, colonies benefit greatly from being moved to better
forage.  John's post is much more informative.  If the colonies are being
moved to honeydew locations without ground flora, then they would indeed be
stressed, but not from the "moving," but rather from the lack of nutrition.


>  >The constant relocation typified by migratory beekeeping is stressful for
> the bees, probably depresses the immune system.
>

"Probably" depresses the immune system?  Is there any evidence to support
this statement?

Randy Oliver

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