I found a basic disconnect, and can show all
parties that there was apparently a mere
semantic difference here, which I'd like to
resolve with a definition of the term
"dead-out comb":
"Dead-Out Comb" - The drawn wax in a frame, AND
ITS CONTENTS as found in a dead-out colony.
So, yet again, "Do combs in CCD dead-outs contain
Nosema ceranae spores?"
We can say "yes", for several different compelling
reasons:
1) The short-term advantage resulting from disinfecting
dead-out combs with EITHER irradiation or acetic acid
fumigation, showed that was what being killed was
Nosema, rather than viruses. (Refer to the MAAREC
press releases and the talks I cited by Dennis
vanEngelsdorp about the attempts to sterilize
dead-out combs.)
2) The detection of Nosema ceranae spores even in pollen
collected in pollen traps gives us a big hint as
to how combs become infected/infested/contaminated,
and also give the spores a "media" to live in.
(See the two papers cited below)
3) Symptoms of Nosema apis are well-understood, and
include diarrhea-like symptoms. Bees with BOTH
Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae in their midguts
at the same time (the best-correlating pathogens
to CCD symptoms ever found), are going to defecate,
resulting in spores of BOTH Nosemas lying around
on comb (not merely in/on pollen cells), despite
the contention that Nosema ceranae does not itself
have diarrhea-like symptoms. It doesn't, but it
doesn't matter. Bees will commonly have both,
as this is what is consistently found in CCD hives.
Details Below
=============
These two papers by Higes (Spain) will explain how pollen
is a known vector for the spread of Nosema ceranae:
http://tinyurl.com/9f2kn3
or
http://cals.arizona.edu/ento/courses/ento446_546/readings/Higes_2008.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/8v97wh
or
http://www.honeybee.org.au/pdf/Nosema_Ceranae_Environmental_Microbiology_200
8.pdf
So, as this pollen is stored in combs, could the pollen alone
be the sole mechanism for Nosema to be spread? Yes.
Now, are the combs containing this pollen "contaminated"?
I certainly would say so.
But Peter (and later, Randy) would likely say that
contaminated POLLEN does not make for "contaminated
comb", in that the wax itself is perhaps free of
Nosema spores.
I'll offer my point (3) above as a mechanism by which the
wax comb itself can become infected/infested with Nosema
ceranae spores even in areas free of any pollen.
But even if the pollen is the only vector, the disconnect is
mere semantics - the pollen can't be removed from all the
cells in all the combs of a dead-out, so, from a practical
standpoint, the whole comb must be treated, either with acetic
or irradiation, and lacking such treatment, the comb is still
"contaminated".
To see that what correlates best to CCD is not one, but BOTH
types of Nosema at the same time, see the supplements to the
Sept 2007 "Science" paper for the data:
http://bee-quick.com/reprints/dedetails.pdf
Joe said:
> "Facts lacking, resorts to rhetoric attacking"
Which sounds just like a rhetorical attack in itself,
as Joe offered no facts, yet had pointed comments
about the people participating in the discussion.
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