>
> " how do we know these viruses are "honey bee
> viruses" much less managed honey bee viruses"


The authors used viruses that are known to affect honey bees, but haven't
been found to cause disease in anything else yet.


> , could the wild bees not be
> simple carriers?
>
This is what the study was designed to show.   The study used a molecular
test to show presence (the individual has the virus in them, but aren't
necessarily sick, or the virus isn't necessarily replicating,  They also
used a quantitative version to see if the wild bees were able to allow for
replication/ infection, and none of them had large amounts of any of the
viruses.

>
> I'm just wondering if this article isn't placing blame (on managed
> colonies) where blame is not due...
>
There wasn't any blame placed in this article - in fact, none of the
viruses that they studied seemed to cause disease in the wild bees. They
caution that there could be other viruses, or that there could be different
strains that cause disease, but this whole study demonstrated that the
viruses that they tested caused disease and increased mortality in honey
bees, and were found in the wild, but didn't seem to be causing increased
disease in the wild bees.

>
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