> DWV does not grow within the mite. Yes, the mites need not be infected to be carriers. The mites are merely spreading the virus more thoroughly than it would spread unaided. Is that "news" to anyone? Likewise, I don't have high blood pressure, but I am often accused of being a "carrier", and giving it to others. :) > Instead, the infection has been found only inside > the gut of the varroa, suggesting that the mite > has merely eaten it from the bodies of bees already > infected. Again, not "news" at all. It seems that the reporter was charged with doing an update on "CCD", and ran into this work, and neglected even minimal homework on prior art in the area. Breathless prose aside, I don't see where the paper at issue moved the ball down the field even one additional yard. > There must be more to the varroa-DWV story than this. > In my bees, there is a clear correlation between mite > population and incidence of young bees with deformed wings. For sure. Visible DWV is one of the big danger signs that forces one to give bad news to novices about pulling the colony out of production treating ASAP. Worse still, one sees it in the photos taken by those who neither monitor nor treat their bees because they bought magic beans in the form of foundation with smaller cells, or a top-bar hive, or a fogger that goes "whoosh" and looks like a prop out of the "Alien" movie trilogy. And whatever happened to all the people who were so convinced that fogging would save us all that they called us names for daring to want to see some data? Why is it that the current crop of true believers can't learn from even that cautionary tale? a) Is it is because we don't draw the parallels often enough or clearly enough out of politeness? b) Or is it the social constraints of groups like this listserv, bee associations, and "the press", where everyone feels obligated to give a "fair hearing" to BOTH sides of all arguments, not just the one that happens to be supported by the data and facts. (To contrast, funny how my physics discussion group feels no need to be "fair" to the idea that Alchemy has as much to offer as chemistry, and none of my pals in medicine think that the "Stork Theory" is as credible as the "Pregnancy Theory".) Why is it that some of the former fogger users have moved on to the new types of magic beans? Can't they make the connection from personal experience? Maybe the problem is that we aren't being tough ENOUGH on the crackpots. Maybe what is needed is a "burn the hive" protocol for excessive varroa infestations, just as is the rule of thumb for excessive foulbrood infestations. At some point, poorly managed hives are just as much a hazard to unsuspecting nearby beekeepers as pesticide misuse would be. Why is one offense blameless and the other a violation of federal law, given that most of our hives for the most part recover from even serious pesticide kills? But back on track here - Yes, of course the viruses can spread to some extent without varroa - how else would they have existed at all for varroa to spread them around more completely? If there is any doubt in anyone's mind on this point, here are a few classic papers: The Evans/Chen paper "Horizontal and Vertical Transmission of Viruses in he Honey Bee, Apis Mellifera" (Journal of Invertebrate Pathology, July 2006) should have removed all doubt that viruses exist at low levels in bees, and that varroa merely spread the viruses ubiquitous, spreading them from bee to bee. There's also "Prevalence and Seasonal Variations of Six Bee Viruses in Apis mellifera L. and Varroa destructor Mite Populations in France" (Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Dec 2004 by Tentcheva, Gauthier, et al) http://aem.asm.org/cgi/reprint/70/12/7185.pdf Which tends to illustrate that a wide variety of viruses are common at low levels even without significant varroa problems. And for the specific case of DWV, the paper "Localization of deformed wing virus infection in queen and drone Apis mellifera L" (Fievet, Tentcheva, et al in Virology J, March 2006) http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1475838 shows us that the "vertical" transmission of this virus is quite possible through the "infected egg" scenario. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * ****************************************************