>Strictly speaking anything we do is a treatment.

When running trials, "treatments" are generally considered to be the
variables.  In this trial, the drenching was not a variable, since applied
to all colonies equally.  I sure hope that you're not catching the virus
that I hear is going around in New York that makes one lose their ability
to communicate amicably!

>
> >Were the treatment bees from the same colonies that were treated?
>

Sorry for the shorthand version of the methodology in my first post.  Bees
were taken from the entrances of ALL 48 hives, then ALL pooled together and
ground up, then applied back to ALL hives.  I do not know whether there was
a pathogen in only one hive that then affected all, or whether the same
effect would happen if one ground up only bees from the same hive.  I just
got word that So. Cal Beekeeper Assoc is going to send me some research
money, so hope to test this season.

>
> >The reason I ask is that I have often wondered how much crushing bees in
> manipulations affects colonies.  I am quite a bit more careful that way
> than many commercial beekeepers and make sure that I smoke or brush the
> bees out of the way when applying patties, for example.
>

Us too!  Especially after seeing these results!  There are a few old
studies from Australia that found that winter manipulation often led to
nosema problems, presumably from the crushing of bees.  The body fluids of
any crushed bee are IMMEDIATELY consumed by surrounding workers.

>
> >It is assumed they digest and recycle the nutrients from the larvae to
> some extent, or do they?.


Yes, they are able to produce jelly and successfully rear brood on a sole
diet of cannibalized larvae.  Such larval cannibalism is likely a factor in
virus/nosema epidemics in hives.

I got the idea of applying the macerate from Dr Tom Rinderer's doctoral
dissertation, in which he quickly bred bees resistant to CBPV by drenching
with a similar macerate from infected colonies.  Similar to the concept of
the "bug juice" that Kristine mentioned.

>I doubt this could be blame for masive apiary death most of the time with
in mainly healthy bees.

The only immediate deaths of "healthy" would generally be from acute
pesticide toxicity.  Otherwise, the bees would no  longer be considered to
be "healthy" when they died!

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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