Study Points to Virus in Collapse of Honeybee Colonies

Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post
September 7, 2007

Scientists yesterday identified a virus as one of the likely causes
of the recent wave of honeybee colony collapses across the country.

The study, co-authored by researchers at Pennsylvania State University, Columbia University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture
and several other institutions, suggests that the Israeli acute
paralysis virus (IAPV) helps trigger the mysterious condition known as
colony collapse disorder, which destroyed about 23 percent of U.S.
beehives last winter. The paper is being published today in the journal
Science.

Beekeepers, scientists and public officials have been searching for
the cause of the disorder, which surfaced in 2004 and was formally
recognized last year. Unlike other diseases that strike hives, the
collapse disorder leaves a colony without most of its worker bees
despite the presence of plentiful food, a queen and other adult bees.
It has devastated an industry that produces honey and pollinates
lucrative crops such as almonds, oranges and apples.

The
scientists who authored the paper emphasized that they have begun to
solve the puzzle but have yet to determine exactly what causes a
colony’s abrupt decline.

“This is a major finding,” said Columbia University professor W. Ian
Lipkin, an epidemiologist who normally focuses on human diseases. “What
we have at present is a marker. We do not think IAPV alone is causing
this disease.”

Israeli
scientists had already identified a lethal strain of the virus in their
country. Lipkin said in a telephone interview that U.S. researchers had
found a closely related virus that “may be somewhat muted,” or less
virulent. Other factors, such as the varroa mite, a well-known parasite
that attacks bees, may be weakening bees’ immune systems and making
them more vulnerable to the virus.

Using the recently mapped
honeybee genome, American scientists were able to identify genetic
material from viruses and other pathogens in bees collected over the
past three years from healthy and sick colonies across the country.
They found evidence of the virus in 25 of 30 affected colonies, but
just one of 21 unaffected hives.

For more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/06/AR2007090602501.html