Bob: I'm not going to disagree with you about adversity causing people to
be more proactive with respect to bee management. Still, its a hard way to
learn to be better beekeepers, if one has to suffer drastic losses of bees in
order to do so. That approach is what happens when you have to guess as to
cause.
And yes, I agree, the disappearing disease of years ago, especially the
cases in the 1960s sound exactly the same as CCD, from symptoms of the disorder,
to beekeeper reactions and postulating of causes, to the inability of
scientists to find a cause. It was also severe and in many states.
And its that exact (not simply similar) set of symptoms that cause me to
question whether we need to invoke anything new to explain CCD. Maybe we have
something new, but the simpler answer is that its something we've never
solved, just cycling through, but over a larger area and more severe than usual.
So, if its NOT new, then remember -- presumably we didn't have either mite
in the 60s, no imidacloprid or other neonicotinics, and the scientists did not
find any evidence of high virus loads at that time. Best that could be
thought up at the time was improved nutrition -- and the lesson from that, if its
nutrition, we sure haven't made much progress in 40 years. But no one said
it was a mite/virus PMS issue in the 60s.
I also know that genetics were suspected at the time -- and I have been
talking to Bill Wilson about what happened back then, not just reading papers.
It could still be a genetic issue.
I'm betting we've been missing something important all these years -- and I
hope that 40 years of advances in analytical technology - covering everything
from virus detection, to improved ways of examining chemicals, to protenomics
and genomics may finally give us an answer -- and you can fault the CCD
Working Group for not being able to move faster -- but you have to realize that
many of these new approaches are waiting in the wings, waiting to be applied
as soon as some funds become available. Last that I checked, at least 12
projects were on the list of those that needed to be funded in order to complete
the first level screening of acquired samples. The $100k approved by the
NHB on March 23 will cover about 1/2 of these, the others will have to wait
longer. The CCD is looking for another $122k just to cover the rudimentary work
that needs to be done to cover the most likely causes.
However, I think I've said all of the above before. And I don't think that
Bob and I are that far apart on most issues.
That said, some of today's statements just aren't true or can't be
substantiated: "All the CCD hives contained mites & virus." That's just not true.
Many had mites, but many did not.
My team has looked at many CCD hives in several states and its not simply
mites out of control. We've seen several operations where mites probably were
a factor And we've seen operations where you'd be hard pressed to find any
mites, now, at the time of collapse, or even months before.
For example, how do you explain a large operation that had so few mites in
the fall that a test of a new mite control agent couldn't be conducted as
planned, yet 70% of the bees collapsed in Jan/Feb - still with virtually no mites
in any samples. And this isn't an isolated case. The last CCD colonies
that I saw two weeks ago in CA had never been to the east coast, had records to
prove that mite control was being practiced, and that the effectiveness of
the mite treatments was assessed in Nov and Jan by testing. These were
colonies that collapsed in the midst of a rapid growth phase with new stores of
nectar and pollen, lots of brood, and still no mites, and no evidence of a mite
problem.
As per all CCD hives having virus,, to the best of my knowledge, the CCD
group only has the virus results from east coast samples from the fall and
mid-winter. That's only a fraction of the samples taken to date.
Since the west coast samples were collected in Feb and March, to the best of
my knowledge, the analysis for virus has not been completed - or the results
are just coming in. So, we just don't know whether ALL of the CCD colonies
have virus.
Please keep in mind, the presence of common viruses at background levels in
bees does not mean that these viruses caused the CCD. However, I wouldn't be
surprised if a virus was found to be the cause, given the symptoms, but it
hasn't been identified yet.
We also need to differentiate between seeing evidence of viruses in bees,
and virus being a problem. If someone were to do PCR work on you, they'd
likely find some smallpox virus (I assume like most of our generation you were
vaccinated), maybe cold sore virus, etc. That doesn't mean you are dying of
viruses. And most tests won't tell you if the virus is viable or not -- which
is why a vaccination for smallpox could produce a detect.
And, as to allegations that Dave had mites out of control in July of 2006
and the allegation that the CCD Group ignored this, wouldn't even take a peak.
The CCD Working Group was not even constituted until January of 2007.
Its a little hard to ignore something that allegedly happened months before
the group was formed. And no, I don't want a bottle with pickled mites
supposedly taken in July -- we can't do any meaningful analysis on this type of
sample.
And Dave was the first to admit to having problems with mites in 2006, as
does the other beekeeper that you keep mentioning. In fact, as I said earlier
today, many beekeepers admit to failures in management that may have
contributed to the problem. But Dave and the other beekeeper that you keep bringing
up aren't the only beekeepers in the U.S. with CCD problems. I've 169 others,
and the list grows each week. I'm convinced that they didn't all have
uncontrolled mites.
You may contend that all of the bees are fine in CA and that they came out
of the orchards in good shape. Many did, but some did not. Listen to
Richard's testimony before the Congressional Committee. Talk to the beekeeper who
got back 4 loads of dead outs over the last two weeks. Ask the growers who
are threatening to sue for lost crop productivity this year (not many,
thankfully, but some). Ask the beekeepers who struggled to replace failing colonies
in the almonds (either their own or those of other beekeepers). Tell me that
I didn't inspect and sample colonies still collapsing in the almonds 2nd
week of March. We're not done with this thing yet.
Jerry
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