randy oliver wrote:
>
> Clearly, the mite/virus association is a strong one--lending support 
> to Bill's contention.  However, some colonies with apparently very low 
> mite levels appeared to collapse from CCD (note all the qualifiers in 
> that sentence?) 
The whole virus/mite/bee interaction is interesting because it is not 
what you might think. Bob and those from GB can help me out here, but 
Carriak (sp?) in the UK showed that Tracheal were not the "virus 
spreader" as a carrier but the synergy of Tracheal/close quarters/virus 
did lead to massive infection and colony death.

So the mite weakens the bee. The virus can take hold. From there, you do 
not necessarily need more mites, just close proximity (winter or flatbed 
truck confinement) and the bees will spread the virus between each 
other. It is interesting that these are the exact thing necessarily to 
precede CCD as we have seen it.

Another interesting aspect of this. Say you have a high mite load, as 
described for some who reported CCD later. You treat with a strong mite 
dropper/killer and now have low mite counts. But the bees are weakened, 
virus is present, confinement happens (truck to Florida, for example) 
and Shazam (that dates me), CCD on arrival. But is actually was all 
mites and virus.

With that scenario you certainly do not need a new, improved virus to 
kill off the bees. KBV will do just fine.

What is a bit disconcerting about all this is that there seems to be a 
solution to the problem which is that virus are at fault. So what! We 
know virus and mites are the major problem for US beekeepers. So maybe 
the reason that Canadian beekeepers do not have a problem is that they 
only have IAPV to worry about while we have a new improved KBV.

I wish I had thought of that, but I heard from reputable source that 
this is the probable reason that Canadian beekeepers do not have the 
losses of the US. It is all in the virus.But they have Aussie Bees with 
IAPV. So maybe IAPV is not the real problem but our own virus are. Or 
maybe Aussie bees are more virus resistant. So buy Aussie, the virus 
resistant bee- which will be counter to the "ban the Oz bees" crowd's 
mantra.

Bill Truesdell (Who has been to Oz and loved it there. Needed the 
"Aussie English" book for translation since they do not speak English.)
Bath, Maine

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