Heaven forbid we should go down the line of trucking container loads of pollinating bees to be discarded after use. There must be another way. Is this what you are looking at?
Absolutely not! My own role is to run several studies, one of which is attempting to engage small scale producers and gather data from them. To understand what we are looking at/for you will need to discard much of what has been published in the past.
Until recently it wasnt that common knowledge that varroa was in fact 4 species with 3 further sub species. Papers have been written on the Taxonomy time and again and the conclusions switch back and forth.
Overall the consensus is two are the most serious risk, these two species are multi reservoir vectors. It is fairly uncommon to encounter a host organism seemingly able to accept different viral loads at the same time with no effect on its own colonies. Many of the larger producer we have met and worked with were unable to tell the difference between one species of Varroa and another.
The hard facts are only two species of Varroa will actually do much harm to a hive. The healthy hive isnt so much affected by the Varroa, if Varroa were the only organism involved then it is unlikely to cause much of an issue, where problems with disease have crept in is down to two particular species of Varroa, both of these are able to carry several different virus at the same time.
Time and again we see specimens sent in from collapsed colonies that outwardly show little more than extremely high Varroa loads, the assumption is the hive died because of this high load. What we often find on doing RNA screening is the colonie became stressed due to high Varroa loading and at this point the viral vector took over. Collapse can be quick and before much evidence of any but varroa is present.
Where our problems lay is with one sub species in particular, to use an anology this particular sub species if it were say a mosquito, would be able to host both Malaria,The black death and the Flu virus all at the same time. This is where our real concern comes in, we have a growing evidence of a host parasite that is able to act as vector to new virus as contact with the virus is made. Normally we would expect an organism to have a favored vector, any other vector trying to infect the host parasite would kill the host, we are not seeing this.
In part I agree with the research that some Bees are in decline because of decreasing numbers of Beekeepers, what the study dosnt address is exactly why so many are giving up. Having seen privileged figures in the last 10 years the incidence of disease has grown to levels that are now considered a real threat.
One of the main studies we are working on is aimed at getting to the bottom of wild colonie decline, no one in my team or within the other groups we are working with, are hoping or looking for a single solution. I do think action on a vast scale will need to be taken to at least bring parasite and host back into balance. But there are many other areas we are looking at, for example modern farming practice and habitat fragmentation.
An example of this local to me involves the A75 road, a bypass was put in not too long ago, no one paid any attention to 4 extremely large wild colonies near the edge of a wood. The road was built directly across from the wood and flight line to foraging grounds.
This particular colonies had been studied for around 15 years, as of last year none are left. In this instance the cause was entirely man made, while environmental impact are done, these often look at protected species such as water vole etc, even in areas where the impact reports indicate the project would have a negative impact, this is often buried or a pipe merely placed in the area and the impact considered dealt with.
The study most small producers are being asked to take part in consists of several phases, phase one we are gathering information, we ask for logs to be kept. If the keeper is able to identify the species of varroa then this is useful, if not we supply a pre paid kit to send us a sample.
First we need to build up a map that shows where different problems are, only once this is done can we move on to looking at how we can improve things in favor of the Bee.
One last point.............
I have seen mentioned recently on here the idea of licensing, This is something we and others are strongly pushing for. I see no reason for it to cost anything to the beekeeper. At the moment in the UK you can register free of charge as a small holding, if you keep under 50 chickens you dont have to register your flock. If you keep more then you register, at no point is a fee charged. The only reason for this system is to keep track of the movement of disease etc.
I personally would see licensing as a positive step forwarded, at the moment we are working blind. NO ONE has the faintest idea just how many managed hives are out there, to me this is unacceptable when you consider the importance of the industry as a whole, and its effect on most other aspects of agriculture.
I dont mind suspicion, but please do not confuse us and what we do with agri pharma sales reps! We are solely interested in understanding a problem and hopefully reaching a point where we can put forward a cohesive plan.
Regards
Jason (Or Joseph apparently
)
I get carried away on these kinds of topics 
