# Vaccine for CCD



## Hambone (Mar 17, 2008)

Here is a related article to the Remebee. Goes into a little more detail about it.



> Beeologics' solution, Remebee, utilizes a mechanism called RNA interference (RNAi, also known as gene silencing) a mechanism that inhibits or hinders gene expression. "The technology is based on naturally occurring biological agents. Conceptually, we're introducing the factor that prompts the silencing response," Paldi tells ISRAEL21c. "We didn't invent gene silencing. However, as far as we know we are among the first to use it commercially on non-humans."


http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles^l2290&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Health


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

I just found the paper Beeologics was promising at the Reno convention

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121642163/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0.


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## pcelar (Oct 5, 2007)

Is this some joke?

First one has to know what is causing a disease (CCD) i.e. what is causative agent before one thinks about the treatment. Than after we know what the causative agent is we can ponder is it possible to treat it. Do we have medicine for it? Did I miss something? Do you know what is causing CCD?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>First one has to know what is causing a disease (CCD) i.e. what is causative agent before one thinks about the treatment.

My thinking exactly... seems like we would need to know the cause to come up with a vaccine...


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

pcelar said:


> Is this some joke?
> 
> First one has to know what is causing a disease (CCD) before one thinks about the treatment.


Not really. If you believe that the cause of CCD is IAPV and make a vaccine against it which shows protection against CCD then that is probably enough. 

I just finished the IMB paper and was not convinced. 
1) First, I would like to have seen data to demonstrate that the virus was alive. Since the only evidence was dead bees, I think they should have infected bees with the same amount of virus prep but gamma irradiated. It is possible that something other than virus made the bees die. 
2) They also didn't continue their graph in figure 2 past 8 days - why? 
3) Figures 4 and 5 indicate that they don't have good technique.
4) No mention of how they grew the virus and no references.
5) No explanation of how the dsRNA may interfere with PCR as a possible alternative explanation for apparent knock down.

I don't like this paper.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Michael Bush said:


> >First one has to know what is causing a disease (CCD) i.e. what is causative agent before one thinks about the treatment.
> 
> My thinking exactly... seems like we would need to know the cause to come up with a vaccine...


Jenner did it in 1798 with small pox. Viruses hadn't even been discovered yet.

http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/nathist/jenner2.html


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## pcelar (Oct 5, 2007)

HVH said:


> Not really. If you believe that the cause of CCD is IAPV and make a vaccine against it which shows protection against CCD then that is probably enough.



First you have *to be dead sure that is the causative agent* (by repeatable experiments i.e. you should be able to always cause CCD by introducing that agent into healthy colony) and than to see if that agent (i.e. virus, bacterium, fungus) has a component (antigen) against which one can make a vaccine. To waste money trying to make vaccine w/o being dead sure that it is ACTUALLY causing a disease is at least foolish.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

pcelar said:


> First you have *to be dead sure that is the causative agent* (by repeatable experiments i.e. you should be able to always cause CCD by introducing that agent into healthy colony) and than to see if that agent (i.e. virus, bacterium, fungus) has a component (antigen) against which one can make a vaccine. To waste money trying to make vaccine w/o being dead sure that it is ACTUALLY causing a disease is at least foolish.


It may be foolish but if they are successful then it strongly suggests that IAPV plays a role in CCD. You are correct about protein vaccines but RNAi is a totally different matter. RNAi has nothing to do with antigen presentation or other components of an immune response. I think the original hypothesis that integrated fragments of IAPV DNA, within the honeybee genome, are somehow protective, motivated this group to test RNAi. It is a risky assumption in need of corroboration.


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## pcelar (Oct 5, 2007)

HVH how can one be successful if one doesn't even know the cause. There is scientific order of the things. Good luck to them.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

pcelar said:


> HVH how can one be successful if one doesn't even know the cause. There is scientific order of the things. Good luck to them.


Read the Jenner link. Jenner noticed milk maidens that had been infected with something from the cow were immune to small pox. They had no idea what small pox was nor did they know what caused the pustules on the milkers. So Jenner deliberately infected a boy with the exudate from milkers and then challenged with exudate from small pox. It worked. So Jenner is credited with the technique of vaccination without knowing what the causative agent was.


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## Robert Brenchley (Apr 23, 2000)

Cow pox. There's an ancient history of people succeeding in doing things without knowing exactly how. How long were they making wine before they discovered what yeast was?


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## pcelar (Oct 5, 2007)

HVH are you sure there is 1 SINGLE cause for this?


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

pcelar said:


> HVH are you sure there is 1 SINGLE cause for this?
> Do you know what you are talking about?
> Do you know what a syndrome is?
> Did you study Microbiology 501?
> Did you study Immunology 501?


Have you been reading the other posts on this thread? You are completely missing the point - if Beeologics makes an RNAi that cures most, if not all, of the CCD symptoms it makes absolutely no difference what the causative agent/s is/are. 
I don't mind discussing microbiology or immunology but I am having a difficult time seeing the connection to Beeologics Remebee. If you haven't already, I suggest you read the primary literature link I provided earlier before you go on the attack.


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

Regardless of whether or not it is a cure for CCD the notion of a vaccination of a bee against any virus is interesting. I posted about this Remebee quite a while ago but it seemed to go unnoticed.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

JBJ said:


> Regardless of whether or not it is a cure for CCD the notion of a vaccination of a bee against any virus is interesting. I posted about this Remebee quite a while ago but it seemed to go unnoticed.


I think I recall the post but I was waiting for the paper to be available. I tried getting answers from researchers but they all said they were waiting for the paper just like me. I attached the paper in an earlier post and have read it and commented on it. I was not impressed with the paper and will just have to wait until someone does some good science before I am convinced.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

HVH said:


> if Beeologics makes an RNAi that cures most, if not all, of the CCD symptoms it makes absolutely no difference what the causative agent/s is/are.


i'm on a slow dial up connection at the moment, so i haven't read the relevant links.

with that said, ccd is, at this point, nothing but a collection of symptoms...which is why it is called a "disorder" or "syndrome" rather than a "disease".

one can have a number of causes for the same set of symptoms (ie, food poisoning and the flu feel very similar, and have similar symptoms, but the flu is a virus, and most poisoning is bacterial, or perhaps fungal).

"symptoms" are not cured, they can be treated.

in order to determine if a causative agent (or agents) are the cause of ccd, one must both find that agent in ALL samples of "active ccd", and be able to CAUSE ccd symptoms by inocculating with that agent. stopping vomiting with pill (or even a large cork) is not a "cure for the flu", it is a treatment for vomiting....there may still be "leakage" from the other end...but no vomiting.

if this is a "cure for ccd", one would expect that it could stop an active "ccd infection" and/or prevent such an infection from spreading through an apiary.

if, in fact, iapv had been found as the causative agent for all cases of ccd, we wouldn't be having this discussion. it hasn't. one could argue that cases that were not found to be caused by iapv are not, in fact, ccd...but then what caused those cases?

deknow


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Guys - I have read the paper, said I thought it was not convincing, and don't really have any opinion about the causative agent/s of CCD. I didn't even start this thread. Read the paper if you are so inclined.


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## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

The sandbox here is small folks...let's play nice. It's greatly appreciated!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Jenner did it in 1798 with small pox. Viruses hadn't even been discovered yet.

True. But he had a several thousand year precedence of (since at least 1000 BCE) variolation where people would inocculated from less virulent cases in the hopes that they could make sure they got a less virulent form of the disease. Based on this knowledge he made the leap to assuming that cowpox was an even less virulent form of smallpox, since it did have similar symptoms, and did what people had been doing for several thousand years with one that was less virulent. The point I'm making is he had a sense of what he was doing regardless of knowing what a virus was or not. It still seems like we need to know something about the cause (Jenner knew that it was caught from the sores of others and that having a less virulent form gave you immunity to getting it again just as well as a virulent form did). He had somewhere to start. We can't decide if it's pesticides, nutrition, a virus, a fungus or something we haven't identified yet. We also don't know how it is spread. It just doesn't seem like we know enough to even start coming up with a vaccine.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Michael.

I agree. But having said that, if an RNAi directed against IAPV works as an effective treatment, it doesn't matter much what you and I may think.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

HVH said:


> Michael.
> if an RNAi directed against IAPV works as an effective treatment, it doesn't matter much what you and I may think.


an effective treatement for what?

we have hit a logical roadblock here.

if ccd is iapv, then there is no need to study what ccd is.

since not all cases offically designated as ccd have tested positive for iapv, then we know that what we are calling "ccd" is not always iapv...even if it is in some cases.

does rnai for iapv "cure" or "prevent" ccd from other causes?

do we simply say that ccd is not ccd if it is not caused by iapv? so what is the cause in those cases? is rnai for iapv effective for some unknown reason in these cases?

deknow


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

deknow said:


> an effective treatement for what?
> 
> we have hit a logical roadblock here.
> 
> ...


I don't trust any current diagnosis of CCD. On the other hand if people that believe they have CCD purchase Remebee and they think it helped, then people will start to believe that IAPV is causal even if it isn't. 

Beeologics infected colonies with IAPV (not sure how they grew virus and verified purity) and found that they had CCD like symptoms. They then fed Remebee and found a significant reduction of bee death. 

I think all of you guys that are being critical would benefit from reading the paper. I have no interest in defending Remebee or an IAPV association to CCD. The paper is available to read and if you want to criticize the study I will join in -> I think it was a terrible paper.


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## pcelar (Oct 5, 2007)

HVH said:


> Have you been reading the other posts on this thread? You are completely missing the point - if Beeologics makes an RNAi that cures most, if not all, of the CCD symptoms it makes absolutely no difference what the causative agent/s is/are.
> I don't mind discussing microbiology or immunology but I am having a difficult time seeing the connection to Beeologics Remebee. If you haven't already, *I suggest you read the primary literature link I provided earlier before you go on the attack*.


I apologize to you HVH. I am sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you or attack. Please accept my sincere apology.


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## pcelar (Oct 5, 2007)

Michael Bush said:


> >Jenner did it in 1798 with small pox. Viruses hadn't even been discovered yet.
> 
> True. But he had a several thousand year precedence of (since at least 1000 BCE) variolation where people would inocculated from less virulent cases in the hopes that they could make sure they got a less virulent form of the disease. Based on this knowledge he made the leap to assuming that cowpox was an even less virulent form of smallpox, since it did have similar symptoms, and did what people had been doing for several thousand years with one that was less virulent. *The point I'm making is he had a sense of what he was doing regardless of knowing what a virus was or not.* It still seems like we need to know something about the cause (Jenner knew that it was caught from the sores of others and that having a less virulent form gave you immunity to getting it again just as well as a virulent form did). He had somewhere to start. *We can't decide if it's pesticides, nutrition, a virus, a fungus or something we haven't identified yet. We also don't know how it is spread. It just doesn't seem like we know enough to even start coming up with a vaccine*.


I agree with this. Well said. Thanks Michael.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

pcelar said:


> I apologize to you HVH. I am sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you or attack. Please accept my sincere apology.


No problem. Thanks


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## sierrabees (Jul 7, 2006)

I remember a comment by one of my professors in internal medicine where he stated, "You will all find when you get into practice, that you will make more mistakes because you didn't try than you will make by doing the wrong thing."


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

sierrabees said:


> I remember a comment by one of my professors in internal medicine where he stated, "You will all find when you get into practice, that you will make more mistakes because you didn't try than you will make by doing the wrong thing."


this is exactly what everyone buying lottery tickets at the gas station in thinking.

deknow


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

The biggest problem I see is that we cannot even predict which hives might collapse or not.

So they give a group of hives the "vaccine." And they give another group of hives a placebo. None of the hives from either group shows any symptoms of CCD. Was the vaccine a "success?" Or not?

Not only do we not know what causes CCD, we don't even know how to reproduce the symptoms. In the case of Jenner, at least he knew that exposure to persons with small pox was likely to make others develop small pox. We don't know if exposure to hives that died of CCD causes CCD, or if exposure to anything "causes" CCD.

Long story short, we don't even know whether or not CCD is communicable, much less what might cause it.

Making a vaccine for CCD at this point might be akin to making a vaccine for human heart failure.


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

Rumor has it that a novel virus may be associated with CCD collapsing colonies. March ABJ p239


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Kieck said:


> So they give a group of hives the "vaccine." And they give another group of hives a placebo. None of the hives from either group shows any symptoms of CCD. Was the vaccine a "success?" Or not?.


In the paper they challenged with live virus first. Infecting with virus seemed to result in CCD.
Since they didn't describe how they made virus or how it was validated, I remain skeptical.


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

Am I understanding correctly, they challenged bee hives with live IAPV first, and seemed to get CCD? Where was their report of that?!? You "solve" one of the biggest mysteries in recent beekeeping, and yet that result gets relegated to a side note in another paper?

P. S. The link to the journal article just resulted in "error" messages for me.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Kieck said:


> Am I understanding correctly, they challenged bee hives with live IAPV first, and seemed to get CCD? Where was their report of that?!? You "solve" one of the biggest mysteries in recent beekeeping, and yet that result gets relegated to a side note in another paper?
> 
> P. S. The link to the journal article just resulted in "error" messages for me.


Insect Molecular Biology (2009)
18
(1), 55–60
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
IAPV, a bee-affecting virus associated with Colony
Collapse Disorder can be silenced by dsRNA ingestion
E. Maori*†, N. Paldi†, S. Shafir‡, H. Kalev‡, E. Tsur*‡,
E. Glick† and I. Sela*†

Abstract
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been associated
with Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV). CCD poses a
serious threat to apiculture and agriculture as a whole,
due to the consequent inability to provide the necessary
amount of bees for pollination of critical crops. Here
we report on RNAi-silencing of IAPV infection by
feeding bees with double-stranded RNA, as an efficient
and feasible way of controlling this viral disease. The
association of CCD with IAPV is discussed, as well as
the potential of controlling CCD.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I would ask...if the bees in the hive were administered a vaccine, how would that transfer to the next round of bees. If the bees in a hive only live 6 weeks, how would a vaccine protect bees in the future ?


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

Thanks for the citation, HVH. I did find the paper, and read through it.

From what I read, they suggest that IAPV can cause symptoms similar to CCD. From there, the authors infer that preventing IAPV might prevent some CCD-like symptoms.

I think Michael Palmer raises a valid question regarding this vaccine. Might be quite a money-maker if beekeepers find they have to continually feed this vaccine to bees, rather than a once-and-done type method.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Kieck said:


> Thanks for the citation, HVH. I did find the paper, and read through it.
> 
> From what I read, they suggest that IAPV can cause symptoms similar to CCD. From there, the authors infer that preventing IAPV might prevent some CCD-like symptoms.
> 
> I think Michael Palmer raises a valid question regarding this vaccine. Might be quite a money-maker if beekeepers find they have to continually feed this vaccine to bees, rather than a once-and-done type method.


I agree. Beeologics better hurry up or the disappearing disease might disappear on its own. 
At $2/hive/month I wonder who their market will be. Perhaps only the commercial guys that have been hit before will buy this stuff.


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

Could be, but I've heard that one of the big commercial guys that got hit pretty hard by CCD chose to breed from his bees that survived, and he and one of the state inspectors here claim that those resulting bees are far better than his bees before getting hit with CCD.

I doubt he would pay $2/month/hive.

My hope is that we learn something from this sort of research, though, and maybe getting some understanding of what can cause the sorts of losses attributed to CCD.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Kieck said:


> My hope is that we learn something from this sort of research, though, and maybe getting some understanding of what can cause the sorts of losses attributed to CCD.


I grow tired of all the theories and would like to have an answer. For now, though, we will have to contend with faith until the facts arrive.


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## dthompson (Feb 10, 2008)

HVH said:


> I grow tired of all the theories and would like to have an answer. For now, though, we will have to contend with faith until the facts arrive.


I couldn't agree more
My bees have ccd for 2 years
It is most unpleasant having >60% die off
It certainly seems infectious
It is NOT nosema, unless
4 seperate tests all were incorrect
(OBA tech transfer, BP -- no nosema detected)
I suspect that those whose bees
don't have ccd are those who don't
believe ccd is infectious
I would like to hear from a "sufferer"
who thinks it is not infectious

dave


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## 67630 (Jul 17, 2008)

pcelar said:


> Is this some joke?
> 
> First one has to know what is causing a disease (CCD) i.e. what is causative agent before one thinks about the treatment. Than after we know what the causative agent is we can ponder is it possible to treat it. Do we have medicine for it? Did I miss something? Do you know what is causing CCD?


Exactly cause if it were that easy would there be any such thing as cancer


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