Bee imports post IWD

[Quis Custodiet]

What Bailey debunked was that Acarine was the agent responsible. Not that IofW disease did not happen.

That is correct, none seem to agree on what the disease actually was.

 

[Finman]

That is correct, none seem to agree on what the disease actually was.

Why it cannot be acarine? Is it some voting issue?

 

[Quis Custodiet]

Why it cannot be acarine? Is it some voting issue?

It might well be acarine, I do not know. I meant it was correct that Bailey claimed it was not acarine. Voting on the matter is hardly likely to provide a conclusive answer.

 

[SDM]

It might well be acarine, I do not know. I meant it was correct that Bailey claimed it was not acarine. Voting on the matter is hardly likely to provide a conclusive answer.

My vote would be that it was the CCD of its day, lack of familiarity with framed hives, many of the men that usually ran the hives at war, sugar shortages , CBPV and accarine. Multiple factors With accarine being the varroa mite of the day.

 

[Finman]

It might well be acarine, I do not know. I meant it was correct that Bailey claimed it was not acarine. Voting on the matter is hardly likely to provide a conclusive answer.

IT happened 100 years ago. Let it be, what ever it was.

 

[Finman]

.
Scottish professor Rennie identified the disease acarinus on the year 1920.

100 years later hobby beekeepers debate, was Rennie right.
.

 

[Beefriendly]

It might well be acarine, I do not know. I meant it was correct that Bailey claimed it was not acarine. Voting on the matter is hardly likely to provide a conclusive answer.

IIRC Bailey found equal numbers of acarine infections in colonies not suffering from IofW disease. Although he never addressed whether they were all original English Amm's. As Br. Adam found some crosses where immune to the disease.
But the symptoms described in later stages of the disease do suggest somee form or mutation to a more virulent form of a paralysis virus.

 

[DanBee]

Does anyone have a copy of this research paper? This is the first I have heard of this.

There's a chapter in the back of Bailey's earlier Infectious Diseases of the Honeybee, or later Honeybee Pathology (either edition). The earlier editions are easier/cheaper to find than the later ones... many association libraries have (or should!) a copy of one of them.

He ascribes the likely cause of some deaths to paralysis (CBPV) based upon the description of trembling bees clustered on grass etc. He notes that contemporary reports found as much acarine in unaffected colonies as in affected ones. Between 1905 and 1919 there were a number of very harsh winters, so potential for losses due to non-mysterious reasons. Also many beekeepers were absent due to war.

There were also some harmful 'treatments' based upon total misunderstanding of honeybee physiology, e.g. stripping all pollen combs out of colonies due to the belief that consumption of pollen produced a harmful "excess of nitrates" that induced IoW disease! Then there were the substances beekeepers were trying... Frow's acarine medication was a mixture of petrol, saffrol, and nitro benzene IIRC, found after about 15 years of diligently trying different combinations of substances... none of these were unusual ingredients for beekeepers to try using in order to prevent IoW disease and/or rid colonies of Acarine.

Bailey is scathing of the press for creating a panic around a mystery disease; beekepers then readily attributed losses to IoW disease rather than examine the circumstances or admit to poor husbandry or mistakes. To read Bailey's comments now reminds me of the bullshit industry around CCD.

Interestingly Bailey does not comment much about the reported correlation of nosemosis with many 'IoW' losses; I have copies of two of the four government sponsored reports of the time and the fourth one, issued circa 1923, is basically focused on nosemosis as the underlying issue and common factor in many losses.

Bailey doesn't report much at all about contemporary loss statistics, nor quantify the restocking efforts or the sources of bees.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

IIRC Bailey found equal numbers of acarine infections in colonies not suffering from IofW disease. Although he never addressed whether they were all original English Amm's..

She

 

[Hivemaker.]

She

Beefriendly has it right, it is He...also known as Bill.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Frow's acarine medication was a mixture of petrol, saffrol, and nitro benzene IIRC,

Still have a steel box full of the glass phials of Frow mixture, BDI capsules, containing nitrobenzene 40 per cent by volume, 75 minim doses for the prevention of Acarine disease in bees.
Bee disease insurance LTD, Iron bridge service depot, Southall, Middlesex.

 

[Quis Custodiet]

She

Blessed is he who has nothing useful to say and has the wit to realise it.

 

[mbc]

Most reporting of beekeeping matters of the time was done by well educated people with the time and influence to do so, most of the bees kept at the time were kept by people with little or no interest in the bee press and no spare income to spend on buying queens, I believe there may be a tiny bit of disparity between actual events and their reporting.
Insects typically go through boom and bust cycles, I have a vague memory of reading an account by an ancient (roman or greek, Pliny or possibly Plinus??) author describing a calamitous bee malady.

 

[TooBee...]

association .... I'd like to see membership/hive numbers for tbe period 1905-1920...

Ive found files for the beekeepers journal and Beekeepers advisor for 1873-1922 a weekly publication. That mentions in 1914 that they intend to compile losses to iow disease by district. ....

I'm not familiar with beeks Association's organization, etc. but an "Assoc. Library" was mentioned in another Post, and until the Internet they may have published a small booklet each year to coincide with the AGM?? It might have membership numbers, and maybe articles of interest, say losses from IWD??? What's the chances of an Assoc. having these old 'booklets' / records still in their Libraries, is it worth while contacting them to see what they have?

 

[Beefriendly]

She

IBRA has learned with sadness of the death of Dr Leslie “Bill” Bailey on 1st May at the age of 95. Dr Bailey was one of the major figures of bee pathology, and is probably best known to beekeepers for the “Bailey Comb Change” and for the book “Infectious diseases of the honey bee” (in its final edition “Honey bee pathology” with Brenda Ball).
After service in the Royal Air Force, Bailey joined the Bee Department of Rothamsted Experimental Station in 1951 to work on bee diseases. Having never previously worked on bees, he approached the subject with an open mind, causing him to question many of the accepted "facts”, myths and misunderstandings that existed in beekeeping textbooks.
He worked on many different pests and diseases, from the bacterial foulbroods, the microsporidium Nosema apis to the mite Acapis woodi (the “acarine” or tracheal mite). When Rothamsted became one of the first institutes in the world to purchase a reliable electron microscope, he realised that it could be used to study bee viruses, isolating and describing the first two in 1963, and over the next twenty years, many of the known bee viruses were first isolated at Rothamsted.
Bailey came to believe that the common beekeeping view that honey bee colonies were either “healthy” or suffering from highly infectious diseases, was simplistic, and that actually most bee colonies contained many of the common pathogens most of the time without causing symptoms or harm, but that certain circumstances, or combinations of circumstances, could cause otherwise harmless pathogens to become harmful, and that different pests and pathogens could interact with each other.
Controversially, he demonstrated that the “Isle of Wight Disease” which was alleged to have wiped out honey bees in Britain in the early 20th century, had been caused by chronic bee paralysis virus (totally unknown at the time) in combination with adverse weather conditions and an excessive density of colonies being kept for the amount of food available, and not as was commonly believed, by the mite A. woodi.
Bailey retired in 1982, but continued to keep an interest in the developing field of bee pathology and wrote occasional magazine articles. He contributed to the COLOSS BEEBOOK chapter on viruses in 2013. Bailey published many influential articles in IBRA’s two journals Bee World and the Journal of Apicultural Research. A full obituary will be published in Bee World in due course.
IBRA sends our condolences to his family.
An account of the development of bee pathology work at Rothamsted Experimental Station can be found here: http://www.tandfonline.com/…/abs/10.…/0005772X.1993.11099160
Bailey’s classic article on the “Isle of Wight Disease” can be found here: http://www.tandfonline.com/…/abs/10.…/0005772X.1964.11097032
His controversial views on breeding bees for disease resistance can be found here: http://www.tandfonline.com/…/abs/10.…/0005772X.1999.11099427
and the COLOSS BEEBOOK chapter on viruses can be found here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3896/IBRA.1.52.4.22
To obtain access to all of these papers you can join IBRA here: http://www.ibrabee.org.uk/2013-05-01-02…/2014-12-12-12-06-0

 

[Finman]

.
Since then has paralysis virus wiped out whole apiaries or hives?
.

Professor Rennie described the disease 1921 as a reason og White isle disease.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Blessed is he who has nothing useful to say and has the wit to realise it.

Aye, we all make mistakes, nt many will admit to it.#
Your father's was to not pull out sooner.

 

[Poly Hive]

Acarine was of course discovered at Craibstone by Rennie on the back of funding provided by Mr Wood of Banchory. £6000 back then was serious money. I just did some checking and in todays money it's a staggering £348,652.03!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I call that generous! I knew a lovely man by name of Alistair Lilburn from Aboyne and he actually knew Mr Wood in his youth. So if you ever wondered where the woodi bit came from now you know.

When I was renting Craibstone I handled the original slides and no doubt the College has looked after them due to their historical importance though I rather suspect they may have been skipped in ignorance but that's another story.

I was told by Mobus that there were two waves of imports in the NE of Scotland, The 20's and 50's both were periods of large importations from the Netherlands and France. The French bees, in particular, were notable for their serious temperament. This info came from the college records of the time.

PH

 

[Quis Custodiet]

Aye, we all make mistakes, nt many will admit to it.#
Your father's was to not pull out sooner.

You have really excelled now jenkins, it is not easy to sink to the depths that you have just managed. You abused and insulted me when I first came on this forum as you do to most people. But being unable to bother me, you now resort to insulting my deceased father........can you not let the dead rest in peace?
You are I believe, some sort of church minister, what hypocrisy. I used to regard you with pity, but now with pity and disgust. You having resorted to offensive sexual innuendo to disparage a dead man is beneath contempt.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

You have really excelled now jenkins, it is not easy to sink to the depths that you have just managed.

Unfortunately it's the only way to get down to your level. You have lurked on this forum and done nothing but jump on any post I make,exuding your unpleasantness on any thread that has had the misfortune of your input, you have attacked countless contributors to this form, hijacked threads to suit your agenda and now paint yourself as a victim. of all the low and unsavoury characters I've had the misfortune to deal with over the years, you are the one that has made my skin crawl the most.
Spare me the false indignation and pop back under your stone.