Dear Will,
In a single email you may have managed to upset the Apifundamentalists
of both camps: Api-Nature Boy/ ApiNature girl (us) and
Api-Industrialists alike.
Truth tends to do this!
One shakes the tree and odd things fall out.
I have found the same in human Medicine.
Mazaltov, and thank you for a thought provoking email.
Eric
On 13-02-2018 07:20, Will H wrote:
This academic paper is interesting on the subject of long term survival
of colonies which are infested with Varroa:
https://www.nature.com/articles/ismej2015186 [1]
The short version is that the lethal aspect of Varroa infection is the
Deformed Wing Virus which accompanies the Varroa. There are DWV
variants, some of which are non-lethal. Where these variants co-exist
they compete to exclude each other. If a colony has variant B then it
may survive in the longer term. The paper is rather technical in places.
Two of my colonies have been tested. Both have variant B which I think
is prevalent locally. My reading of the paper is that it isn't
guaranteed that Variant B will automatically triumph but it has around here.
If Super-exclusion in DWV is the cause for long term survival then the
bees genetic adaptations are less important. If I've understood, it's
more important what their Varroa are transmitting. This has consequences
for the argument about local bees. There are good reasons to choose
locally adapted bees, but Varroa tolerance probably isn't one of them --
their strain of DWV probably is.
In practice I don't think that this changes anything for our group. Take
swarms from survivor colonies. Choose local swarms for all your
preferred reasons but don't infer that they're magic bees just because
they've survived.
This paper also looks interesting (although I've only read the abstract):
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316024861_Oldest_Varroa_tolerant_honey_bee_population_provides_insight_into_the_origins_of_the_global_decline_of_honey_bees
[2]
Will
