>What is the time period from inoculation till a collapse situation?

First, not all colonies were equally affected upon virus inoculation.  Note
that 2/3rds had received some treatment.
Upon inoculation, a number of them crashed quickly--in about 10 days.  This
is similar to the situation in caged bees in incubators, in which they crash
at about day 9 after inoculation.  The weather turned cold shortly after the
first crashes.  None of the other colonies in my operation exhibited any
crashing at that time, nor during the winter.

>Does the brood nest continue to expand or contract when the virus
concoction
is added?

The colonies were inoculated on November 25--so broodnests would normally be
shutting down.  However, those colonies that struggled through spring did
indeed expand the broodnests, struggling to keep the brood covered with
bees.

We then observed every stage of depopulation and collapse through spring,
often with large patches of sealed brood abandoned, and finally resulting in
a handful of young bees and a healthy-looking queen which was laying eggs
like mad.

BTW, I did check for nosema in the colony that starved suddenly two nights
ago--spore counts of the dead bees on the floor were about 24M.

Bob, as Dr. Bromenshenk and I have said repeatedly, it appears that there
may be a nosema/virus interaction.

Randy Oliver

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