-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: September 6, 2007 11:51:14 AM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Scientists' Revelation of What's Killing Bees
New virus may be killing bees
Thu Sep 6, 2007 2:10PM EDT
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN0635510520070906?
sp=true
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A newly discovered virus may be killing bees
or may be making some bees vulnerable enough to disappear, U.S.
researchers reported on Thursday.
While the virus probably does not alone account for what scientists
call colony collapse disorder, or CCD, it could help explain what
is happening to bees across the United States, they said.
The virus, called Israeli acute paralysis virus, or IAPV, was
discovered in Israel in 2004 and is new to science.
CCD hit an estimated 23 percent of all beekeeping operations in the
United States during the winter of 2006-7. "These beekeepers lost
an average of 45 percent of their operations," the researchers
wrote in their report, published in the journal Science.
Beekeepers do not find bees dead -- they simply find the hives
nearly empty, with the queens alone and workers gone.
Honeybees originally imported from Europe are used to pollinate
$14.6 billion worth of fruits, nuts and other U.S. crops annually.
Bees also have disappeared from hives in Brazil and across Europe.
A team led by Dr. Ian Lipkin, an expert in the spread of infectious
diseases at Columbia University in New York, ground up bee samples
from across the United States and compared them to non-affected
bees from Pennsylvania and Hawaii. They also looked at bees
imported from Australia and samples of a bee product called royal
jelly from China.
They then sequenced the genomes -- the entire collection of DNA --
and looked for genes from bacteria, viruses and parasites. They
found five major bacterial groups, four lineages of fungi and seven
types of viruses.
LOADED WITH VIRUSES
"We found a remarkably high viral burden in bee populations -- both
those that have CCD and not," biologist Edward Holmes of
Pennsylvania State University told reporters in a telephone briefing.
Only one was always associated with CCD -- IAPV.
"Whether it is a causative agent or a very good marker is the next
major question that we need to address," said Diana Cox-Foster, an
entomology professor at Penn State. A marker might mean that
something else that was making the bees disappear also helped them
become infected with the virus.
Jeffery Pettis of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Bee Research
Laboratory in Maryland said IAPV was only one of several leads that
must still be followed.
"I hope no one goes away with the idea that we have actually solved
the problem," Pettis told the briefing.
"I still believe that multiple factors must be involved in CCD."
Perhaps interactions among parasites, viruses and nutrition could
be involve, he said.
IAPV can by transmitted by the varroa mite, a parasite known to
affect U.S. bees.
Lipkin said in a telephone interview the next step is to infect
healthy bees with IAPV and see if their colonies then collapse, as
seen in CCD.
Cox-Foster said the team was also looking at other possible causes
of CCD, although some leads were being pursued more urgently than
others.
"We have very little evidence that the radiation from cellphones
could impact bees," she said.
She said tests also have shown that genetically modified crops have
no ill effects on bees, although chemical pesticides could be
adding stress.
As for why the bees disappear, Cox-Foster said they may
deliberately avoid returning to the hive when they begin to feel
ill, perhaps to protect their sisters and the queen.
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