Scientists find clue in mystery of the vanishing bees

Colony collapse disorder has killed millions of bees
Scientists suspect a virus may combine with other factors to collapse colonies
Disorder first cropped up in 2004, as bees were imported from Australia
$15 billion in U.S. crops each year dependent on bees for pollination

(CNN) -- A virus found in healthy Australian honey bees may be playing a role in the collapse of honey bee colonies across the United States, researchers reported Thursday.

Honey bees walk on a moveable comb hive at the Bee Research Laboratory, in Beltsville, Maryland.

Colony collapse disorder has killed millions of bees -- up to 90 percent of colonies in some U.S. beekeeping operations -- imperiling the crops largely dependent upon bees for pollination, such as oranges, blueberries, apples and almonds.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says honey bees are responsible for pollinating $15 billion worth of crops each year in the United States. More than 90 fruits and vegetables worldwide depend on them for pollination.

Signs of colony collapse disorder were first reported in the United States in 2004, the same year American beekeepers started importing bees from Australia.

The disorder is marked by hives left with a queen, a few newly hatched adults and plenty of food, but the worker bees responsible for pollination gone.

The virus identified in the healthy Australian bees is Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) -- named that because it was discovered by Hebrew University researchers.

Although worker bees in colony collapse disorder vanish, bees infected with IAPV die close to the hive, after developing shivering wings and paralysis. For some reason, the Australian bees seem to be resistant to IAPV and do not come down with symptoms.

Scientists used genetic analyses of bees collected over the past three years and found that IAPV was present in bees that had come from colony collapse disorder hives 96 percent of the time.

But the study released Thursday on the Science Express Web site, operated by the journal Science, cautioned that collapse disorder is likely caused by several factors.

"This research give us a very good lead to follow, but we do not believe IAPV is acting alone," said Jeffery S. Pettis of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Bee Research Laboratory and a co-author of the study. "Other stressors on the colony are likely involved."

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This could explain why bees in Australia may be resistant to colony collapse.

"There are no cases ... in Australia at all," entomologist Dave Britton of the Australian Museum told the Sydney Morning Herald last month. "It is a Northern Hemisphere phenomenon."

Bee ecology expert and University of Florida professor Jamie Ellis said earlier this year that genetic weakness bred into bees over time, pathogens spread by parasites and the effects of pesticides and pollutants might be other factors.

Researchers also say varroa mites affect all hives on the U.S. mainland but are not found in Australia.

University of Georgia bee researcher Keith S. Delaplane said Thursday the study offers a warning -- and hope.

"One nagging problem has been a general inability to treat or vaccinate bees against viruses of any kind," said Delaplane, who has been trying to breed bees resistant to the varroa mite.

"But in the case of IAPV, there is evidence that some bees carry genetic resistance to the disorder. This is yet one more argument for beekeepers to use honey bee stocks that are genetically disease- and pest-resistant."

Bee researchers will now look for stresses that may combine to kill bees.

"The next step is to ascertain whether IAPV, alone or in concert with other factors, can induce CCD [colony collapse disorder] in healthy bees," said Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Besides the Columbia and USDA researchers, others involved in the study released Thursday include researchers from Pennsylvania State University, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, the University of Arizona and 454 Life Sciences. E-mail to a friend

We all know many beekeepers are blaming all their losses on CCD this time
instead of the many other beekeeping problems which might be the problem.
The symptoms are clearly posted yet many clain CCD yet when asked they say
they saw none of the symptoms but still had deadouts. Must be CCD!

In New England, beekeepers that have experienced heavy losses attributed to unseasonably warm weather causing starve outs and not colony collapse disorder (CCD). This new killer has been associated with perhaps over stressed bees for commercial pollinators and a possible link to a imdacloprid chemical that poisons honey bees. Additionally, genetically modified insect resistant plants could be playing a role with a possible connection between genetic engineering and diseases in bees. This phenomena is being coined as a potential "AIDS for the bee industry". The characteristics of this sudden loss of colonies vary and what applies in one case may be different elsewhere. Generally speaking there is almost a complete lack of adult bees yet evidence of recent brood rearing. In some cases the queen and a small number of survivor bees may be present in the brood. Honey is usually present with an unusual delay in hive robbing and slower than normal invasion by common pests s!
uch as wax moth and hive beetles. This suggests there is something toxic in the colony itself, (a pheromone) repelling them. There is evidence of almost all known bee viruses in the few surviving bees found in the hives after most have disappeared; a sign that the bee's immune system may have collapsed. The jury is still out on this serious epidemic pathological condition.

Still looking for the cause Ray

National Bee Loss Survey

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is the latest problem facing bee keepers today. Symtoms of CCD are:

1) In collapsed colonies

The complete absence of adult bees in colonies, with no or little build up of dead bees in the colonies or in front of those colonies.

The presence of capped brood in colonies.

The presence of food stores, both honey and bee bread
i. which is not immediately robbed by other bees
ii. when attacked by hive pests such as wax moth and small hive beetle, the attack is noticeably delayed.

2) In cases where the colony appear to be actively collapsing

An insufficient workforce to maintain the brood that is present

The workforce seems to be made up of young adult bees

The queen is present

The cluster is reluctant to consume provided feed, such as sugar syrup and protein supplement

Please take time to fill out a survey, whether or not you have experienced CCD. All data collected is confidential and helpful for determining the exact cause of CCD.

The maps of CCD are based on the beekeeper survey posted on www.beesurvey.com_ (http://www.beesurvey.com). All state reports must be confirmed by follow-up interviews, inspections. The maps are based on a 12-month period -- not all states are experiencing the CCD at this time. For a state to be added to the list, we look for evidence of collapse in the state itself, as well as any collapse in states like California of Florida.

Most recently, CCD has been playing out in CA, OR, OK, and TX, as well as some continued failure in SE states.

Several beekeepers have indicated that we should go back 2-3 years.

As per honest responses -- we've made a concerted effort to protect beekeeper confidentiality (read the intro to the survey). In fact, after the latest map was posted, some state inspectors called or e-mailed us, wanting to know WHO the reporting beekeeper(s) were.

We told them that we can only share that information IF the beekeeper has checked the box on the form allowing us to do so. Not surprisingly, state regulatory officials are the one group that several beekeepers do not want to receive specific information.

Once again, the only way we can get correct data is if you, the beekeepers, provide it. We need to know where and when the CCD has been seen, actual locations of affected yards - to see if it spreads to nearby yards, and management information that may help us understand what beekeepers without the CCD are doing differently, if anything, from those with the disorder.

As such, not only do we need to hear from beekeepers who have experienced the CCD, but also we need to also need to have beekeepers who have managed a reasonably large number of bees for several years without seeing the CCD. (A beekeeper with 1-2 years experience and 1-2 hives is too small to tell much - may have just been lucky).

So, rather than argue the correctness of the survey, please participate. These surveys depend on adequate input.

We need your assistance. Our maps are based on the best available information, and that information mainly comes from beekeepers. Where possible, we try to get independent confirmation, but we have to trust the beekeeper in the same way that the beekeeper has to trust that we will protect the confidentiality of the information.

Finally, the map on CBS last night is already out-of-date. You can all add Washington to the list of affected states.

And before you ask, no, we have not posted the map on our survey site. We'd just as soon not influence participation by having a respondent look at the map before deciding whether to fill out the survey.

Keeping Bees Among Us

By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

Published: February 22, 2007

Mention honeybees, and most people think two things: stinging and industriousness. A beekeeper thinks: jubilation, harmony, the civilization of insects. Nothing in nature is more vibrant — literally — than a strong hive on the increase in late spring and early summer. And few things are more depressing than opening the lid on a hive and pulling apart the supers, the boxes where bees raise young and store honey, and finding that the colony inside has died.

It is far more than the death of individual bees. It is the death of prosperity itself.

My dad kept bees when I was young, and now I keep them. There were problems in my dad’s day: ants, skunks, wax moths and a couple of deadly but well-known bee diseases, like foulbrood and nosema. But my dad’s day — the late 1950s and early ’60s — looks, in retrospect, like a golden age. No one had heard of tracheal mites or varroa mites — two tiny pests that have decimated hives in the past 15 years and made beekeeping much more complicated than it used to be.

Now there are alarming reports of a new bee problem, called colony collapse disorder. “Disorder” is something of a code word. It means that no one really knows what is causing the sudden death of hives. There were heavy losses last fall, mainly among migratory beekeepers, who move their colonies from crop to crop as fields and orchards come into blossom. The threat of this new disorder isn’t merely the loss of bees. It’s also the loss of crops — a long list of them, including most tree fruits — that depend on pollination by honeybees.

Scientists are already hard at work searching for the cause of this disorder, which may be fungal. It may even be that transporting hives from crop to crop stresses bees more than we think. But I know from my own experience with bees — as someone who keeps only a couple of hives, never moves them and leaves most of the honey for the colony itself — that we must do everything we can to keep these creatures among us, as much for their sake as for our own.

The latest copy of Midwest Beekeeper is largely devoted to reporting on the CCD and it's a free download. It's got, among other things. a map.