[Pollinator] [beemonitoring] Scare Tactics?

[Stoner, Kimberly]

Hi Russel and others,
Deformed wing virus and black queen cell virus have been found in some species of bumble bees here in the US.  We collected Bombus impatiens and sent them off to John Burand at the University of Massachusetts as part of a larger project and he found both of these viruses in our bumble bees from several different locations (pumpkin/squash fields) around Connecticut. Others have also found honey bee viruses in other bees.

Finding these viruses with PCR is not the same as showing that they replicate or are pathogenic in bumble bees.  That has been shown with DWV and  B. terrestris in the UK, but not yet with US species, to my knowledge.
Kim

From: beemonitoring at yahoogroups.com [mailto:beemonitoring at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Russel Barsh rlbarsh at gmail.com [beemonitoring]
Sent: Saturday, February 06, 2016 11:40 PM
To: Peter Bernhardt <bernhap2 at slu.edu>
Cc: Bee United <beemonitoring at yahoogroups.com>; Pollinator List-serv <pollinator at lists.sonic.net>; Graham Pyke <Graham.Pyke at uts.edu.au>; Gerardo Camilo <camilogr at slu.edu>; James Trager <James.Trager at mobot.org>
Subject: Re: [beemonitoring] Scare Tactics?


Peter --
We read the underlying article in SCIENCE and yes, I think the press story you cited is implying that DWV is the sole or principal cause of colony collapse, and that its spread is a consequence of global bee-keeping. The underlying article argues from phylogenetic data that DWV is an ancestral disease of honeybees, but that its transmission has been facilitated by Varroa mites as carriers. Living with a beekeeping and honey-making family (my in-laws on the islands here), I hear stories all the time about sloppy inexperienced beekeepers that don't take proper measures to control mites. So the story may have been better titled "Sloppy beekeeping facilitates transmission of DWV worldwide".
I'm much more disturbed by the evidence published in NATURE in 2014 for honeybee viruses jumping to bumblebees. We really need to do more collecting of wild bees and genomic screening for viruses such as DWV that could be spread by domesticated and commercialized bees to wild species.

I've been collecting wild herring (a whole different side of my science life) for colleagues at USGS here that are studying viral epidemics in fish that may be transmitted up the food chain i.e. from small fish to their predators. It's an angle I would like to help launch in the study of pollinator networks.
Thanks for throwing a spotlight on misleading reportage...

Russel.
Russel
Russel Barsh
Director, KWIAHT
PO Box 415, Lopez Island WA 98261

On Sat, Feb 6, 2016 at 3:18 AM, Peter Bernhardt bernhap2 at slu.edu<mailto:bernhap2 at slu.edu> [beemonitoring] <beemonitoring-noreply at yahoogroups.com<mailto:beemonitoring-noreply at yahoogroups.com>> wrote:

Please go to the following link.  Do you think the media is overdoing it, just a bit, or is the situation as grim as they make it?  Some sites are referring to the virus as a man-made (vs. man spread) disease.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160204150617.htm

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