DWV A & B

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BDT123
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DWV A & B

Unread post by BDT123 »

Peter Borst posted to Bee-L this morning on DWV. In a quoted reference it states there are two identified strains of DWV, A & B, with B being the more virulent strain, and perhaps recently emergent. Also a reference to some DWV infections being 'covert', no phenotypic expression, leading to unexpected colony collapse.
What do others make of this? Varroa is apparently still the vector of transmission. Could DWV-B be a cause of unexplained losses? I'd appreciate some knowledgable feedback from the more experienced beeks. Thanks
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Re: DWV A & B

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There are many unexplained things happening all around us and in beehives. The causes of many losses are unknown, but people being what they are, try to explain them and convince themselves they understand.

Waves of bee losses have occurred over and over throughout history, and most have never been adequately explained, although there were never any shortage of guesses masquerading as truth.

I'm guessing that there is some truth to this 'discovery', and my guess is that there are far mope than two.

Just as there are many strains of honey bee, there are many versions of almost any pest, including AFB, varroa, etc. and each has differing virulence to each strain and genotype of bee.
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BDT123
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Re: DWV A & B

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Following the Bee-L thread, the evidence looks like if the less virulent strain is prevalent, then the more virulent strain is suppressed. Thoughts?
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Re: DWV A & B

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I read something about that, somewhere, a while ago. Someone was promoting the idea of 'inoculating' bees with one form, like a vaccine, in the hope(?) that it would prevent them from getting the other.
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Re: DWV A & B

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I don't think you have to inoculate them. The viruses are ubiquitous.

ABJ circulated an interesting article yesterday about feeding individual bees antibiotic syrup and others, controls, just syrup, marking both and returning them to their hives. Apparently the drugged ones, on average, died sooner.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 150933.htm

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-overuse-a ... esand.html

After retiring and building up a hobby outfit, I recall I had good success with my bees until the year I introduced some AFB frames into a few hives and fed tylosin as an experiment.

The tylosin cleaned up the AFB 100% and it was never seen again since, but varroa built up like never before and I had 100% winter loss that fall. Up until then, I was controlling varroa with just OA drizzle as I recall. (Have to check back).

After that, I often wondered if up until the tylosin my varroa had some limiting disease that kept their numbers down and I killed it off, or if the bees had something in them that enabled them to achieve a balance with varroa that I killed with tylosin.

Of course I'll never know. Moreover, I brought in some new stock that year and maybe something came with it.

I can only speculate, though -- too many confounding factors.
Allen Dick, RR#1 Swalwell, Alberta, Canada T0M 1Y0
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Re: DWV A & B

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I think,Allen/BBK, that I read about rnaI viruses being used to innoculate bees to make the viruses less pathogenic to them. Not sure I got the whole geist of the story, but it sounded like there can be less deadly viruses if there is a pre-exposure of the bees to the non-fatal form/ let them reach stasis with the virus. I think DWV was the focus, but may be mistaken. The article made it sound as though, if the non-lethal , less virulent form of a virus predominated, then the bees had some good chance of surviving an infection, even if dealing with Varroa D and their virus load.
I guess time will tell. Or not....Hope there are some big brains working this...
Or else Bayer/ Monsanto will make some money, regardless.
Do you folks think they are evil geniuses or mis-characterized people trying to do good? I'm be-mystified by Monsanto/ Bayer.
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Re: DWV A & B

Unread post by Allen Dick »

It sounds plausible. There is so much we don't know, can't know and never will know. Nonetheless, there is never a shortage of people who can explain everything,

As for Bayer and Monsanto, they are just people making decisions the same way as the rest of us.
Allen Dick, RR#1 Swalwell, Alberta, Canada T0M 1Y0
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