Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery - (Colony Collapse)

[Ganja Ninja]

DENVER — It has been one of the great murder mysteries of the garden: what is killing off the honeybees?

Since 2006, 20 to 40 percent of the bee colonies in the United States alone have suffered “colony collapse.” Suspected culprits ranged from pesticides to genetically modified food.

Now, a unique partnership — of military scientists and entomologists — appears to have achieved a major breakthrough: identifying a new suspect, or two.

A fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem, according to a paper by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana in the online science journal PLoS One.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/science/07bees.html?_r=1

[trotsky]

1. Not cell phones? Not GMO?

Well this OBVIOUSLY can't be the reason. :sarcasm:

[PearliePoo2]

2. Fantastic breakthrough

There's hope the honeybee colony collapse can now be prevented by focusing on attacking the fungus with anti-fungus agents.
Recommended

[LiberalEsto]

3. Yum. That's good bee paste.

"... a coffee grinder worked best of all for making good bee paste."

Seriously, I still suspect the inclusion of high-fructose corn syrup may play a role by making bees less healthy and therefore more vulnerable to viruses and fungi.

[trotsky]

4. Except that HFCS is not used in Europe, but CCD is widespread there too.

Pretty strong evidence against HFCS as a culprit.

[LiberalEsto]

5. What is CCD?

I thought that was a catechism class for Catholic kids. :)

[Uben]

6. Colony collapse disorder?

nt

[trotsky]

7. Yes. n/t

[pokerfan]

8. The complete paper is available at PLoS

Abstract

Background

In 2010 Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), again devastated honey bee colonies in the USA, indicating that the problem is neither diminishing nor has it been resolved. Many CCD investigations, using sensitive genome-based methods, have found small RNA bee viruses and the microsporidia, Nosema apis and N. ceranae in healthy and collapsing colonies alike with no single pathogen firmly linked to honey bee losses.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We used Mass spectrometry-based proteomics (MSP) to identify and quantify thousands of proteins from healthy and collapsing bee colonies. MSP revealed two unreported RNA viruses in North American honey bees, Varroa destructor-1 virus and Kakugo virus, and identified an invertebrate iridescent virus (IIV) (Iridoviridae) associated with CCD colonies. Prevalence of IIV significantly discriminated among strong, failing, and collapsed colonies. In addition, bees in failing colonies contained not only IIV, but also Nosema. Co-occurrence of these microbes consistently marked CCD in (1) bees from commercial apiaries sampled across the U.S. in 2006–2007, (2) bees sequentially sampled as the disorder progressed in an observation hive colony in 2008, and (3) bees from a recurrence of CCD in Florida in 2009. The pathogen pairing was not observed in samples from colonies with no history of CCD, namely bees from Australia and a large, non-migratory beekeeping business in Montana. Laboratory cage trials with a strain of IIV type 6 and Nosema ceranae confirmed that co-infection with these two pathogens was more lethal to bees than either pathogen alone.

Conclusions/Significance

These findings implicate co-infection by IIV and Nosema with honey bee colony decline, giving credence to older research pointing to IIV, interacting with Nosema and mites, as probable cause of bee losses in the USA, Europe, and Asia. We next need to characterize the IIV and Nosema that we detected and develop management practices to reduce honey bee losses.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0013181