> Bob Harrison wrote:
> If there is a solution I would be interested as through private emails
from
> the U.K. with the researchers continuing the work of Bailey they believe
> bees can survive varroa if it were not for the viral infections but how do
> we cure the viral infections?

This looks dangerously imprecise.  Are we not in danger of setting a whole
new load of hares running - uselessly in circles?

Individual bees do survive varooa - in the sense that predated larvae still
turn into alive adult bees.  But those bees are underweight (although weight
increases after emergence, according to Winston) and also have reduced life
expectancy.  So the effect of varooa is to reduce the economic efficiency of
the colony - the amount of return obtained from the energy needed to raise a
bee.  The effect increases with the degree of infestation - at some point,
the colony becomes economically unviable , declines and eventually dies out.
There is NO  mechanism that restrains the varooa population to a level that
where the energy losses are just affordable - and if there were, colonies
would survive but produce no surplus honey.

It is surely impossible to eliminate viruses .  Viruses are endemic in
colonies but (without varooa) the mechanisms for transfer are such that they
rarely increase to a level that results in death of the colony.  But viruses
do weaken or kill adult bees outright.

Since viruses are always with us, at low levels, but increase rapidly as the
numbers of varooa rise, we are where we always were - the number of varooa
have to be kept low.  The significance of Winston et al ' studies is that it
is wrong to think that varooa do not matter until a theshold is reached -
varooa at any level weaken the colony thru increasing virus.  So rather than
looking for a better bullet to kill out varooa once a year , we need to find
ways to make the hive environment more hostile to varooa all thru the year,
so that the population always stays small.

We don't yet have sufficiently effective methods / substances, but open mesh
floors and volatile oils are perhaps pointers.  Rothamsted in UK are testing
fungi that kill mites - how those would be made a permanent feature within
the hive environment we do not yet know.

Having failed to find ways kill varooa effectively and safely with all sorts
of poisons (apart from fluvalinate), please let us be spared a fresh wave of
dangerous amateur experiments, this time aiming to kill viruses on honey
bees!

Robin Dartington

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and  other info ---
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::