Peter quoted:

> "The primary cause of the failure of colonies to build
> up in the apiaries from which the 1977 HRDD stock came
> seems to be disease... From our data we can offer no
> support for the genetic hypothesis of DD."

(From "Disappearing Disease: III. A comparison of seven 
different stocks of the honey bee" by Kulincevic, 
Rothenbuhler, and Rinderer, June 1984)

There have been multiple events that were given the 
misleading and unhelpful label "Disappearing Disease" 
or "Dwindling Disease", but I doubt that any two events 
had the same exact cause.  (The Penn State team put an 
article in Bee Culture a while ago that asked the 
question:
"Colony Collapse Disorder: Have We Seen This Before?"
http://tinyurl.com/6bwa3c
...but did not actually answer that question one way 
or the other.  At least they listed most of the prior 
"events" that might have been confused with "CCD" by 
the press.)

The quote from Rothenbuhler, et al was a good-faith 
statement from men of good character, but the curious
wording was intended to say "no, not OUR fault THIS time".  
The context for these strangely-worded statements and 
surprisingly defensive assertions is a little-known 
tale of beekeeping intrigue that can now be told, as 
the villains of the tale can no longer extract revenge 
from anyone.

Bill Wilson of the USDA tracked an earlier 1970s outbreak 
of "disappearing disease" to the door of the USDA Baton 
Rouge Bee Lab, where AHB genetics had been crossed with 
the hybrids of the time.  Prototype queens had been 
distributed to operations all over, and Bill saw the 
connection between the new queens and the problem.  
The USDA was embarrassed by the exposure of their own 
messing around with "killer bees", and rather than face 
the music, they sidetracked him and his career in 
retaliation for exposing the USDA as the source 
of the genetic problem.

Bill was right, but without the resources of a cooperative
USDA, he had limited proof.  The actual breeding work 
involving AHB likely posed little or no risk of having the 
same cataclysmic outcome as the work in South America that 
resulted in the "release" of AHB, but the USDA did not want 
the bad press inherent in any whisper that they were working 
with any AHB genetics at all.

Beekeepers don't seem to realize that what appears to them 
to be a game or a mere series of arguments is played for keeps. 
Entire careers, Bill Wilson's included, have been sacrificed 
in an effort to serve the interests of beekeepers.  Science 
is a full-body contact sport, and sometimes people cheat, draw 
fouls, flopp like Bill Laimbeer of the Pistons, and slide into 
3rd base with their cleats in the air.

In that specific case, the USDA itself treated one of its own 
like an expendable pawn.

I offer a toast to Bill Wilson at every large beekeeper event, 
and hope that others do the same.  

We have to drink to Bill Wilson, as no one else is brave 
enough to do so, and it is our obligation to grant immortality 
to those who were brushed aside and swept under the rug along 
with the truths they found.

The toast is simple - "Bill Wilson was RIGHT, and everyone 
knew he was right!"

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