CCD explained?

[Stromnessbees]

In Germany they did prove the pesticide connection and Bayer ended up paying 2.000.000 Euro in compensations to beekeepers.
That was for about 11. 500 colonies and the loss of revenue from them.

I am not sure what other test were done, but only colonies adjacent to treated maize were affected.

Doris

[Jimbo]

Hi Rosie,

Sorry if I misled you I an not saying we should go out and start treating right away.I was trying to suggest if the virus is found in the UK and CCD becomes a problem then it would be better to treat the Nosema as we have a way to deal with Nosema but not the virus. By keeping one of these vectors at bay would prevent the combination that gives rise to CCD

Jimbo

[Jon]

In Germany they did prove the pesticide connection and Bayer ended up paying 2.000.000 Euro in compensations to beekeepers.
Doris

Hi Doris. Noone disputes that. As Rosie says, insecticide kills insects including bees, especially if the insecticide is not applied according to instructions.
The point I am trying to make is that there is no logic in linking pesticides to ccd without evidence - the evidence is scant.
The pros and cons of general pesticide use is a seperate argument

[Stromnessbees]

Hi Jon

I agree with you that there seems to be no link between pesticides and CCD.
Post #11 was meant in reply to Jimbo.
All I objected to was the way you wrote about beekeepers who worry that bees are affected by pesticides:

... bees supping guttation water, sub lethal doses of Imidicloprid bla bla bla...

Those German bees must have picked up the pesticide somehow ... but this is not the topic of this thread, so
no need to discuss it here further.

Very impressive morphometry results, by the way!

Doris

[Jon]

Hi Doris.
I didn't mean to be pejorative about beekeepers who worry about pesticides.
I just get tired of people who move the goalposts every time a theory is disproved.
There are a lot of people out there who are determined to blame pesticide use for every ailment suffered by bees irrespective of the evidence.
That would be a simple solution but some problems are complex and require complex solutions.

Those German bees must have picked up the pesticide somehow

From what I read, the German bees picked up the pesticide from dust clouds when maize seed was being drilled as the seed coating had not been properly applied to the seed.
As you pointed out, Bayer recognised this and paid compensation.

[gavin]

Of course insecticides kill insects, including bees, but if the hot heads had had their way a lot of time would have been wasted researching pesticides instead of looking for the real cause of CCD. Many of us have tried to say this throughout the CCD search but we have been shouted down on all the forums apart from BEE-L.

Hi Rosie

In fact the US researchers did initially have pesticides quite high up their list, and the research showed no link. My impression was that the Belgian study and a French one also thought that pesticides were likely candidates for widespread colony losses, and they found links to other aspects of bee health but not farm pesticide exposure.

Now we're about to repeat the folly in the UK. Let me re-phrase that: these other studies had reasons for including pesticides in their long lists of possible suspects for their bee troubles. However a large expensive project has been funded which assumes that pesticides are the major factor in UK bee troubles. See the France 5 thread lower down. The hot heads have had their way.

I'm talking about diffuse, low level poisoning of course, not the blunder of coating seed in dusty dressings containing clothianidin. Nor the effects on the environment of over-intensive agriculture and the destruction of in-field, field margin and other lowland habitat wildlife. Just the supposed failure (in the eyes of these hot-heads, which is an odd juxtaposition of words!) of regulation of pesticides in routine farm use.

G.

[Rosie]

In fact the US researchers did initially have pesticides quite high up their list, and the research showed no link.

Hi Gavin

I remember that. Jerry Bromenshenk was quite good at releasing information at strategic points of the search via BEE-L. One could say that it's a shame the same information was not released on the British sites but his words would have fallen on quite a lot of stoney ground in any case.

Rosie

[gavin]

Hi Folks

Try this for a description of Apis Iridescent Virus in Apis cerana:

L. Bailey and Brenda V. Ball (1978) Apis iridescent virus and “clustering disease” of Apis cerana. Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 31:368-371.

Abstract

Apis iridescent virus was plentiful in each of several samples of adult individuals of Apis cerana from sick colonies in Kashmir and Northern India. Almost every bee, of those examined individually, was infected with the virus, which caused an easily detectable iridescence in the fat body and most other internal organs. The only other parasites recognized were tracheal mites, but most individual bees and some samples were not infested with these.

Then go here for Bee-L discussion on Dee Lusby's problems in September 2007. Dee herself describes clustering inside colonies, something she'd never seen before. She also - in response to questions from me - describes the totally pesticide-free nature of her beekeeping and the environment her bees live in.

Scroll down to 'CCD misdiagnosis' and look for Dee Lusby's posts.

http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/w...d0804A&L=BEE-L

G.

[GRIZZLY]

Very interesting paper.I struggled thro' it and , I think , understood the gist of it.What is your conclusion Gavin ? -do you think the American research has cracked CCD or are they just scratching the surface.Treatment of both forms of Nosema are fairly straight forward , but I notice they seem only to be dealing with N.Cerenea -do you think N.Apis would react similarly with IIV ?

[Jon]

So given the age of that paper on clustering - 1978 - the inference is that Apis Iridescent Virus jumped species from Apis Cerana to Apis mellifera via varroa, is that what you are saying?