# Professor, students identify bacterium that may kill honey bees



## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

http://www.uwstout.edu/news/article...entify-bacterium-that-may-kill-honey-bees.cfm



> A University of Wisconsin-Stout biology professor and his students may have made an important discovery in the effort to determine why honey bee hives are dying out during the winters in the Upper Midwest.
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> Biology Professor Jim Burritt and his students have published research about a new strain of the bacterium called Serratia marcescens strain sicaria. With evidence of its killing power, they chose the name sicaria, which means assassin, and Ss1 for short.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

Barry said:


> http://www.uwstout.edu/news/article...entify-bacterium-that-may-kill-honey-bees.cfm


Now that would be a game-changer. We have been believing that our bees were dying from viruses spread by varroa destructor. Instead, there is a possibility that they are dying from bacterial infection spread by varroa destructor. Or is varroa even the vector of this disease?

Of course, we know that viruses are still present, but are they the fatal cause? If it is bacteria and not virus, that changes the conversation on almost everything. Treat with antibiotics? Resistance spectrum would need to be completely re-thought. 

I know it is awful early, but this will be interesting to watch.


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