Isle of Wight Disease?

[naxx3]

So I was curious about this.

This thread isn't terribly urgent, other than the excitement of beekeepers wanting to know everything there is to know.

I was reading about the AMM black bees of Britain, and they say that the Isle of Wight Disease mostly is responsible for their decline. And from some of your other comments it seems that British beekepers say that this was also the original British bee. And then wight disease comes around...

There's something unexplainable about how its sad when you see that things that were good aren't around anymore, or are in decline, etc. That's sort of what had me thinking about this. (AMM, not the disease.)

But you don't see any threads about this disease. Does that mean its no longer around? Or are other bees just immune to it? (I did see a few brief posts mentioning this disease but not an actual thread on it, or discussion about it.)

You don't even hear about what symptoms and effects this disease would manifest, only that it was quite devastating to certain bees.

I couldn't help but bee curious. And thought I'd see what you gentlemen thought about it.

Is this disease gone?

 

[pargyle]

So I was curious about this.

This thread isn't terribly urgent, other than the excitement of beekeepers wanting to know everything there is to know.

I was reading about the AMM black bees of Britain, and they say that the Isle of Wight Disease mostly is responsible for their decline. And from some of your other comments it seems that British beekepers say that this was also the original British bee. And then wight disease comes around...

But you don't see any threads about this disease. Does that mean its no longer around? Or are other bees just immune to it?

You don't even hear about what symptoms and effects this disease would manifest, only that it was quite devastating to certain bees.

I couldn't help but bee curious. And thought I'd see what you gentlemen thought about it.

Is this disease gone?

Well ..
It was devastating just after the 1st world war ... these days people think that it was acarine which is still around but at the time colonies did not cope with it and there was some thought that all the Native AMM bees were wiped out but it appears that some colonies survived and there are descendants of this survivor stock still in the UK .. but other bee strains were introduced from abroad after the IOW disease to replace lost stock and a vast majority of uk bees are now hybrid from years of inter breeding -acarine is no longer a serious problem in the UK.

 

[Apple]

Isle of Wight disease never has had any foundation... nor has Acarine as being the culprit!

UK bees were decimated probably by a virus imported on German "brown bees" imported by the ill informed
Ironically BA never said that the native black or brown bee was extinct.... but quoted by Yates in his book used for BBKA BASIC and has been repeated by the great unwashed ever since.

Most bees in the UK are high in Amm genetics

 

[pargyle]

Isle of Wight disease never has had any foundation... nor has Acarine as being the culprit!

UK bees were decimated probably by a virus imported on German "brown bees" imported by the ill informed
Ironically BA never said that the native black or brown bee was extinct.... but quoted by Yates in his book used for BBKA BASIC and has been repeated by the great unwashed ever since.

Most bees in the UK are high in Amm genetics

There's a slew of theories as to what caused it ... but ... in those days there was not a lot of written up evidence for us to look back on with any certainty ... the most popular one is that it was Acarine as the most likely culprit but I wouldn't bet my shirt on it. You could well be right. Yates again in terms of extinction - he has a lot to answer for !

Roger Patterson could be on the money with his page about it on the Dave Cushman site:

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/iowdisease.html

 

[beeno]

So I was curious about this.
But you don't see any threads about this disease. Does that mean its no longer around? Or are other bees just immune to it? (I did see a few brief posts mentioning this disease but not an actual thread on it, or discussion about it.)

You don't even hear about what symptoms and effects this disease would manifest, only that it was quite devastating to certain bees.

Is this disease gone?

Virology and the Honey Bee - European Commission, European Research Area
Quote
2.5. Chronic bee paralysis virus.
2.5.1. Discovery
Although the symptoms of “paralysis” were probably recognised more than two thousand years ago by Aristotle as he described hairless black bees that he called “thieves”, the causative agent was not confirmed until 1963 when Bailey and colleagues isolated and characterised chronic bee paralysis virus (CBPV). Some twenty years earlier, Burnside (1945) in the USA, had succeeded in reproducing the disease in caged bees follow- ing spraying, feeding or injection with bacteria-free extracts of paralysed bees, and concluded that the responsible agent was a virus
Virology and the Honey Bee- European Commission, European Research Area
Quote
2.5.2. Paralysis disease symptoms and aetiology
Paralysis symptoms of trembling, flightless clusters of bees crawl-ing at the hive entrance have long been recognized by beekeepers (Ball and Bailey, 1997). One of these symptoms, crawling bees, was often at- tributed to infection with N. apis, Malpighamoeba mellificae or Acarapis woodi (Ball and Bailey, 1997). Bailey, (1967) demonstrated that 70% of crawling bees at the hive entrance that were not infected with these com- mon macroscopic parasites had chronic paralysis. Moreover, some bees severely parasitized by Acarapis woodi also had CBPV (Bailey, 1967) and although independent, both mite and virus are contagiously transmitted and tend to increase in prevalence under similar circumstances (Bailey et al., 1983b) (see section 2.5.5).
Paralysis is the only common disease of adult bees that has striking, well defined signs with two distinct sets of symptoms (syndromes) (Fig. 4) (Bailey and Ball, 1991; Ball and Bailey, 1997). Type 1 syndrome, seemingly the most common in Britain, includes an abnormal trembling motion of the wings and bodies of affected bees (paralysis). These bees fail to fly and often crawl on the ground and up the stems of grass, sometimes in masses of thousands of individuals. Frequently they huddle together on top of the cluster in the hive. They often have bloated abdomens and partially spread, dislocated wings. The bloated abdomen is caused by distension of the honey sac with fluid which accelerates the onset of so-called “dys- entery”. Sick individuals die within a few days following the onset of the symptoms. Severely affected colonies suddenly collapse, particularly at the height of the summer, typically leaving the queen with a few workers on neglected combs. All these symptoms are identical to those attributed to the “Isle of Wight disease” in Britain at the beginning of the century.
Unquote
According to the NBU stats this disease is one the way up again with certain areas in the UK developing hot spots - my area included. Lost two colonies to it in 2019 admittedly dispatched one as I did not want to spread other colonies.

 

[madasafish]

Isle of Wight disease never has had any foundation... nor has Acarine as being the culprit!

UK bees were decimated probably by a virus imported on German "brown bees" imported by the ill informed
Ironically BA never said that the native black or brown bee was extinct.... but quoted by Yates in his book used for BBKA BASIC and has been repeated by the great unwashed ever since.

Most bees in the UK are high in Amm genetics

I think it was because aliens landed and gave UK bees Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus.


(Making assertions with no proof appears to be a speciality)

 

[Curly green finger's]

I think it was because aliens landed and gave UK bees Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus.


(Making assertions with no proof appears to be a speciality)

It's all a myth.

 

[Apple]

Virology and the Honey Bee - European Commission, European Research Area
Quote
2.5. Chronic bee paralysis virus.
2.5.1. Discovery
Although the symptoms of “paralysis” were probably recognised more than two thousand years ago by Aristotle as he described hairless black bees that he called “thieves”, the causative agent was not confirmed until 1963 when Bailey and colleagues isolated and characterised chronic bee paralysis virus (CBPV). Some twenty years earlier, Burnside (1945) in the USA, had succeeded in reproducing the disease in caged bees follow- ing spraying, feeding or injection with bacteria-free extracts of paralysed bees, and concluded that the responsible agent was a virus
Virology and the Honey Bee- European Commission, European Research Area
Quote
2.5.2. Paralysis disease symptoms and aetiology
Paralysis symptoms of trembling, flightless clusters of bees crawl-ing at the hive entrance have long been recognized by beekeepers (Ball and Bailey, 1997). One of these symptoms, crawling bees, was often at- tributed to infection with N. apis, Malpighamoeba mellificae or Acarapis woodi (Ball and Bailey, 1997). Bailey, (1967) demonstrated that 70% of crawling bees at the hive entrance that were not infected with these com- mon macroscopic parasites had chronic paralysis. Moreover, some bees severely parasitized by Acarapis woodi also had CBPV (Bailey, 1967) and although independent, both mite and virus are contagiously transmitted and tend to increase in prevalence under similar circumstances (Bailey et al., 1983b) (see section 2.5.5).
Paralysis is the only common disease of adult bees that has striking, well defined signs with two distinct sets of symptoms (syndromes) (Fig. 4) (Bailey and Ball, 1991; Ball and Bailey, 1997). Type 1 syndrome, seemingly the most common in Britain, includes an abnormal trembling motion of the wings and bodies of affected bees (paralysis). These bees fail to fly and often crawl on the ground and up the stems of grass, sometimes in masses of thousands of individuals. Frequently they huddle together on top of the cluster in the hive. They often have bloated abdomens and partially spread, dislocated wings. The bloated abdomen is caused by distension of the honey sac with fluid which accelerates the onset of so-called “dys- entery”. Sick individuals die within a few days following the onset of the symptoms. Severely affected colonies suddenly collapse, particularly at the height of the summer, typically leaving the queen with a few workers on neglected combs. All these symptoms are identical to those attributed to the “Isle of Wight disease” in Britain at the beginning of the century.
Unquote
According to the NBU stats this disease is one the way up again with certain areas in the UK developing hot spots - my area included. Lost two colonies to it in 2019 admittedly dispatched one as I did not want to spread other colonies.

Thanks for that synopses will be useful if we ever get to do our DASH !!

 

[B+.]

Isle of Wight disease never has had any foundation... nor has Acarine as being the culprit!

UK bees were decimated probably by a virus imported on German "brown bees" imported by the ill informed
Ironically BA never said that the native black or brown bee was extinct.... but quoted by Yates in his book used for BBKA BASIC and has been repeated by the great unwashed ever since.

Most bees in the UK are high in Amm genetics

Mine aren't.

Quoting Yates is never a good idea. It cites Br Adam as an example of a "modern breeder" even though he died in 96.
As I understand it, Br Adam began importing bees from around the world to replace Amm colonies that had died out - unless you know different?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Quoting Yates is never a good idea.

Whatever the question was

 

[Apiarisnt]

The word 'contested' comes to mind

 

[Apiarisnt]

The word 'contested' comes to mind

...and if you are interested in the historical aspects, try searching for "hansard" and "isle of wight disease"

 

[masterBK]

Like for many virus disease, bees vary in their susceptibility to chronic paralysis virus and this has an underlying genetic basis. If you requeen all your colonies with obvious signs of CP with queens bred from colonies that have no evidence of it you will find that the incidence in your apiary declines (but you will still get the probelm popping up on occasions. The disease manifests itself and the virus spreads more rapidly within the hive when bees are congested and this has been shown to be via broken setae (bristles/hairs).

Beekeeping microscopists will tell you it is hard to find bees with Acarine inn the trachea these days. They seem to have gone the same way as Braula, wiped out by Varroa treatments.

 

[beeno]

Thanks for that synopses will be useful if we ever get to do our DASH !!

Thanks for that comment and I learnt something myself on A/C of it.