> There have been attempts to bring bumble bees into Australia > for glasshouse pollination and tomatoes. So far they have been > rejected. One of our grounds for objection to the importation > is the possibility of getting Varroa destructor which we don't have. You have the ultimate laboratory, as bumblebees have become established in Tasmania, but not on the Australian Mainland. What's been the impact on Tasmania? In the case of mainland Australia, the bumblebees themselves are currently considered an invasive species. For example, see: http://www.aussiebee.com.au/bumblebeeharm.html http://tinyurl.com/k97c2xk The paper linked below might be the source of the apparently garbled claim about varroa. It is not the varroa itself that has been shown to "jump species", but instead, the DWV virus most often spread by varroa, and also nosema. No surprise that bumblebees forcibly inoculated with DWV can carry DWV and perhaps further spread DWV, and there is an impact on their lifespan. Also no surprise that bumblebees can become infected with honeybee nosema, as the nosema strains are very similar. But these infections would not be a bumble bee colony-threatening events. http://phys.org/news/2014-02-honeybees-linked-diseases-wild-bees.html#inlRlv http://tinyurl.com/nt22ll4 Now bumblebees have their own forms of Nosema, and bumblebees imported from Europe for greenhouse pollination ended up being responsible for the sudden extinction of at least two species of US-native bumblebees, but this was a unique situation, as the species of bumblebees imported was, at the insistence of the self-appointed "Pollinator Protector" pressure groups, a US species. So, US native bumblebees where exported to Europe, bred, and then imported, bringing with them a nasty strain of bumblebee Nosema common in Europe, but hitherto unknown in the USA. The US experience tends to support a continued ban to protect your native bee populations, as we simply do not know enough about bumblebee diseases to construct more than a stick-figure "WTO risk assessment". But under WTO rules, what you don't know, tends to end up pushing an import down your throat. In the case of mainland Australia, the bumblebees themselves are currently considered an invasive species. In the study above, it is important to note that no one has shown that DWV or can actually be spread from managed honeybees to bumblebees in "the field". This seems like another shoe dropping from the sneaker-wearing centipede of the "Pollinator Protection Racket", where honeybees are first disparaged as "non-native", and now can be labeled as a tangible threat to so-called "native" pollinators with the unproven speculation: "Infected honeybees can leave traces of disease, like a fungal spore or virus particle, on the flowers that they visit and these may then infect wild bees." Yes, the above is perhaps possible, but bees have shown themselves to be difficult subjects for epidemiological study, and the transfer of diseases, via flowers, between species is something we are going to have to see before we give it any more credence than the long-intoned misinformation about hive tools (rather than infected comb transfers) spreading AFB. But ignore my words at your own peril. This study will be waved about as cause to create "honeybee-free" areas where "native pollinators can thrive", and managed honeybees will be further disparaged by the "Pollinator Protection Racket" as "disease carriers" without adequate science. *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html