I said:

>> Not only do mites transmit viruses to bees, but mites
>> also transmit viruses to other mites via bee larvae.

Bob said:

> Old news!

Old SPECULATION.
This is clear and compelling proof.
Big difference.

>> Chen's work also appears to prove that colonies that have
>> viruses are always colonies that have varroa.

> The above hypothesis would be hard to prove as all colonies now in most
> areas carry a varroa load and it was Dr. Shiminuki's opinion and mine that
> the spread of viral infections progressed directly in proportion with the
> increase in varroa load in the hive.

I'm sure that the work was hard and tedious, but when you can introduce
mites "by hand" to individual brood cells,  take individual mites and
larvae and test them and see the results, it is not "hard to prove".
From what I saw, it is proven beyond any reasonable doubt, and further,
beyond many unreasonable doubts.  I saw electrophoresis gels, I saw
charts of data.  Both were easy to understand.

> Bailey proved the above at least to myself and I believe Dr. Shiminuki
> (head of Beltsville when varroa arrived) years ago (late 1980's).

Well, now that the lab now has a real microbiologist/virologist, and
the equipment has improved so much over 20 years, we can hope for some
real progress.  Perhaps Shim and Bailey had a high degree of certainty,
but what we have now is mite by mite, larvae by larvae, virus by virus
evidence.  They are not guessing at all.  They are seeing specifics.

This is the big advantage to having scientists who are not traditional
"bee scientists" working on bees.  When all you have is entomologists,
you may not have anyone who can do molecular work like this.

> When we took the discussion to its conclusion we found the virus
> information *interesting* but only a symptom of advance varroa
> infestation and we saw *no solution*.

Well, it is clear that there is much less chance of viruses being spread
when there is only one mite per brood cell, which in itself is a very
interesting approach to the whole idea of "treatment thresholds".

Sadly, no, there is no magic wand to wave at an apiary and "solve
the problem" yet.  There is no panacea.

But the fact that someone can track/watch these individual viruses
in near real-time on a very specific basis is a very important thing,
a tool that may advance knowledge to the point where actual solutions appear.

Trust me, it is a very significant step.  The difference is as if for decades
we would say vague general things like "there are lots of cars going by" and
suddenly we now can get a complete list of the year, make, model, color, serial
number, and speed of each car.

"Know the enemy" is a powerful concept.


                jim

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