>Yawn back then and Yawn now.

Tedium goes both ways, Bob...

>Commercial beeks saw two problems IN HACK's bees which were new to us (even
if Pettis did not) [Nosema ceranae and KBV]

Fact check:
Hack had N ceranae in his operation since at least 1985 and did not notice
any problems with nosema nor collapses until his problems in 2005 (personal
conversation).  So N ceranae was certainly not *new* to his operation.

>Nosema ceranae nearly wiped out hives in Spain

Fact:  This assertion is strongly challenged by other Spanish researchers,
and has not been supported by research from any other lab or country on the
planet.  Many beekeepers worldwide (including myself and Hack's associates
in Florida) keep apparently healthy, productive bees with sometimes high N
ceranae levels without ever using fumagillin.

> KBV was not in the samples we had taken in Florida before Hack's bees

Fact (from Virology and the Honey Bee): "molecular detection in
apparently healthy adult bees have shown that KBV is a widespread and
common inapparent infection in the USA (Hung et al., 1996; Hung and
Shimanuki, 1999)"

Note the dates, which greatly precede Hack's troubles.  We can safely assume
that KBV was not new to Hack's operation.

Fact (same source), possibly tying KBV to the Army's iridescent virus:

  2.10.1. Discovery
"Kashmir bee virus (KBV) was discovered in 1974 as a contaminant
in preparations of Apis iridescent virus extracted from the Asian hive bee
Apis cerana sent from northern India (Bailey and Woods, 1977). Adult Apis
mellifera bees died when injected with these particles, which the authors
called Kashmir bee virus after the area from which the bees originated
(Bailey and Woods, 1977). However, serologically related strains of KBV
were later detected in A. mellifera from Australia (Bailey et al., 1979)."

KBV is widespread in Australian bees, and comes in innumerable strains.
 However, we have no idea as to how those strains affect bees when varroa is
involved, since Australia is free from that parasite.  However, Australian
bees brought to the US often crash when they pick up varroa.  I am not
saying that the strain of KBV in Hack's bees came from Australia, but no
telling.

>You make things too simple.

Again, goes both ways, Bob!  Especially when you ignore well-documented
facts.


Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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