From: Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]>

>I think you misinterpreted what they were saying, they were saying that most microorganisms in the honey bee do NOT cause illness.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding...can you put the following (from your original post) in a context that supports your (above) interpretation?

"Among the high number of microorganisms which are coexisting with honey bee colonies, most are opportunistic and induce troubles under as-yet undefined environmental conditions."

....seems to me the word "induce" is important here...they are not saying that when one of a few microorganisms gets out of whack then they all do (which is probably close to the truth), they are saying that most of the thousands of microorganisms (under some conditions) cause or lead to "troubles".  Is there another passage in the paper that clarifies this?  It seems pretty clear to me, but I have not read the entire study.


>By the way, the subject is "proper diagnosis of bee diseases'. Regardless of you philosophy on treatment or non-treatment, it is still absolutely essential to know what the health of the hives is.

...this seems circular to me.  Yes, if you want to accurately (which might be different than "properly") diagnose a disease, you have to evaluate the health or lack of health.

...but to play a little devils advocate here, one can properly diagnose afb or nosema from a sample without knowing anything about the hive.  I can see a photo of a bee from a colony with a mite on its back and properly diagnose a varroa infestation, even if the only thing I see is that one bee.  Such a diagnosis is quite separate from an evaluation of the overall health of the hive.

>It simply won't do to blithely kick back and say microbes are all natural, let the bees handle it.

...this is precisely what we do with plants most of the time.  Plants require microbes as well (we are pleased that Dr. Paul Arnold will give a presentation at our conference this summer on the relationship of fungi and root systems of plants).  Remember that about 20% of the sugars produced by a plant are pumped out the root system to feed the associated soil microbes.

I could spend years trying to grow a tasty tomato in a sterile environment...adding and testing the need for each microbial species one at a time and in combination...in a few hundred years I might know something.  On the other hand, I can take some soil that looks good, add some compost, plant the tomato outside, and it will thrive and produce delicious tomatoes.  I don't have to manage the microbial culture beyond making sure there are no herbicides present, close to proper pH, and close to a proper texture of soil.

Certainly there are microbial innoculants that are used by some farmers...but how many here who grow any plants (houseplants, gardens, farms, orchards, etc) take any attempt to specifically identify the components and relationships between the microbial cultures?  ...yes, there are microbial diseases that tomatoes get sometimes (esp. fungal), but does anyone here specifically monitor their soil microbes?

>I submit that to take such a position would be ignorant.

I would submit that my position is far from ignorant....but if you want to call me (or my position) ignorant, go for it.  I leave it to the reader to evaluate your statement.

If, however, one is to insist that they can manage a complex microbial culture better than it can manage itself (by using antibiotics, probiotics, fungicides [like thymol], acids, HFCS, or sugar), then have at it....but it's a little bit like telling a lie...one lie leads to another bigger one and so on.

>We don't know everything, but we do not a lot, and some of what we know is actionable.

...such actions seem to lead to more actions...the opposite of "balance".  But Peter, aside from perhaps 2 dozen or so microbes (some of which cause disease, and some of which appear to have co-evolved with the bees), what is it we know?  How would you diagnose the difference between a "healthy microbial culture" and an unhealthy one?

I know you are on record as a proponent of annual (or biannual) prophylactic antibiotic application...and you are also on record as not wanting to be responsible for anything you said more than a week or a month ago.  With that said, as of today, how would you "handle" the hive microbial culture differently (or better) than the bees and the microbes would?  To quote Tom Robbins, "What is it you think you know?"

deknow

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