Colony Collapse Disorder, which led to the loss of some 40 – 90% of the commercial bee hives in the US this spring, seems to be caused most immediately by a virus. Whether it’s a new virus, or changed conditions that make a known virus more lethal is not yet known.
Scientific sleuths have a new suspect for a mysterious affliction that has killed off honeybees by the billions: a virus previously unknown in the United States.
The scientists report using a novel genetic technique and old-fashioned statistics to identify Israeli acute paralysis virus as the latest potential culprit in the widespread deaths of worker bees, a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder.
Next up are attempts to infect honeybees with the virus to see if it indeed is a killer.
”At least we have a lead now we can begin to follow. We can use it as a marker and we can use it to investigate whether it does in fact cause disease,” said Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist and co-author of the study. Details appear this week in Science Express, the online edition of the journal Science.
Experts stressed that parasitic mites, pesticides and poor nutrition all remain suspects, as does the stress of travel. Beekeepers shuffle bees around the nation throughout the year so the bees can pollinate crops as they come into bloom, contributing about $15 billion a year to U.S. agriculture.
The newfound virus may prove to have added nothing more than insult to the injuries bees already suffer, said several experts unconnected to the study.
The scientists I have heard speak about this, as well as about the great frog die-off, are extremely worried that these events are caused by subtle and pervasive systemic changes to the eco-sphere — for which there is no immediate cure. There is no widespread agreement about how to proceed and no popular mandate to turn our lives upside down to fix it.