>Did Prof Fries know what he was talking about?
I think so - but who am I to judge - and how?
Most of his talk covered things that we already know about the history and
spread. No-one has produced reliable evidence of N.c. in mellifera pre-1998
(looked at Paxton's frozen samples of bees from around the world.
1994 Na tested on Apis cerana in China - it will infect - but all colonies
in China had some N.c.
Talked about N.c. replacing N.a. in some countries. Does not happen
everywhere (not happening in Sweden) - nobody knows why.
No competitive advantage for one over the other.
N.c. infectious dose may be slightly lower but this does not explain the
rapid spread.
In Spain, Higes reported caged bees die in 8 days - nobody has been able to
repeat this work. So why the mass die-off in Spain and Portugal? Was it
N.c.? Is climate involved? Could it be the race of bee? [Iberian bees
originally came from Africa via different route to the other European races.
P.E.]
Monitoring in Germany does not support high colony level virulence.
The N.c./Iridescent virus/CCD theory was just a comment - but put across
very forcefully using the word 'RUBBISH' several times. He claimed that
many others were of the same opinion that the research was flawed, but did
not elaborate.
Best wishes
Peter
52.194546N, -1.673618W
***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm