# Israeli acute paralysis virus



## BULLSEYE BILL (Oct 2, 2002)

*A glimmer of hope?*

>"Preliminary research shows some bees can integrate genetic information from the virus into their own genomes, apparently giving them resistance, Sela said in a telephone interview. Sela added that about 30 percent of the bees he’s examined had done so.

Those naturally “transgenic” honeybees theoretically could be propagated to create stocks of virus-resistant insects, Lipkin said."

Teenage Mutant Bees to the rescue! If 30% of our bees can become resistant we'll be in luck. But that does not seem to reflect in the losses of 90% that were reported by the big commercial opperations.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Your link takes me to a traffic report?? I know that traffic makes me not want to go home either, but that's a new theory on CCD.


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## Aisha (May 2, 2007)

Here's another link.


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

AstroBee said:


> Your link takes me to a traffic report?? I know that traffic makes me not want to go home either, but that's a new theory on CCD.


Beats me. It worked this morning. I fixed the original with this link. Seems to be ok now.

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770906061


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## clintonbemrose (Oct 23, 2001)

*new on CCD*

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20612274/from/RS.3/
Just saw this and thought you might be interested.
Clint


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## Ribster (Nov 3, 2004)

also 1 from bbc news

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6978848.stm


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## JohnBeeMan (Feb 24, 2004)

It was just on the NBC News program on TV also.


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## louis1st (Oct 17, 2004)

*see what the bbc says*

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6978848.stm


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## Church (May 31, 2007)

Well if its true, pack it up its gonna be a long haul before it stabilizes.

Someone better get fast at it to isolate strains that are resistant to the virus or is doom and gloom for keeps and those needing pollinators.

I guess that should be a lesson to all, not only should there be rigorous quarantine of bees outside of the US, but each state should be providing their own pollinators for crops; too little too late but I'm sure the California Almond growers must be scrambling.

The whole idea of interstate migratory pollinators is a formula for disaster, its too bad there were not good practices in effect years ago to stop interstate transportation of bees.

Maybe this will be a wake up call to stop any interstate sale or shipment of bees. Again, too little too late.


Anyone considering Mason bee futures?????


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## indypartridge (Nov 18, 2004)

"Now, Australia is being eyed as a potential source of the virus."

Didn't Jim Fischer prophesy this months ago?


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

just read the original article in Science. I wish they would release the article on their website without a subscription. There is some very important details that the regular media is leaving out. Surprised? I'll try and summarize some important and interesting details without straight out copying.

-------

Calderone, N. says we've identified a suspect whereas before we didn't even have circumstantial evidence.

research team ordered Australian bees and found IAPV (isreli virus) in most of them

4 beekeeping operations with CCD and two without CCD where tested
25 of 30 colonies had IAPV,
1 of 21 healthy colonies had IAPV
Hornig, M. says its a "good marker"
bee virologist de Miranda, J. says its "Chicken-and-egg problem" CCD hives tend to accumulate many secondary diseases could be just another

Bromenshenk, J. of Bee Alert Tech. Montana doubts link to CCD. his collaborators have spotted over a dozen known and new viruses including IAPV in Florida, California, and Australia, but none associated with CCD. He says no clear pattern yet.

All 4 operations infected had either imported Australian bees or had hives close to others with Australian bees.

the 2 CCD free beeks where in Hawaii and Penslvania, neither had Australians

No CCD in Australia, Canada, or Israel but IAPV is there.
Perhaps not in Australia because no Varroa?
Pettis notes Varroa present in Canada and Israel but no CCD
Pettis notes other stresses in US like trucking and poor nutrition.

Experiments are beginning to try and recreate CCD with IAPV with combination of 3 pathogens and stress.

Sela in Isreal says IAPV deadly. bees feed in experiment die at 98% within days
but some bees resistant
1/3 isreal bee samples show incorporation of virus into genome.
experimented with these show 20% surived when injected IAPV.

Cox-Foster advises beekeepers to keep bees healthy as possible and not to reuse hives from collapsed colonies

summarized from 
Stokstad, E. (2007). Genomics: Puzzling decline of U.S. bees linked to virus from Australia. News of the Week.. Science 317: 1304-1305.


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

Sad to say I bet importation of Australian bees will continue this year even though its known to be importing a virus not previously found in US. Importers will note that the virus may have been in US previously as not many samples tested previously. Also will probably note its already here so they are not importing a new virus even though they are the ones that probably already imported it. too much $$$$$$$$$$.

Beekeepers should take note of what they are buying. which is bees that are confirmed to be caring a known, deadly, not previously reported bee virus in US. Quote from the above referenced article "Moreover, THE TEAM ORDERED BEES FROM AUSTRALIA AND DISCOVERED IAPV IN MOST OF THEM." So, regardless of the cause of CCD, the above statement remains true and known.

Shipping bees is bad news. The further they are shipped the greater potential for exotic pathogen spread.


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## MapMan (May 24, 2007)

MichaelW said:


> Shipping bees is bad news. The further they are shipped the greater potential for exotic pathogen spread.


Well, fortunately and unfortunately, we live in a global economy, based on a huge import and export infrastructure. 

Fortunately because we as consumers can buy goods at competitive prices, even though we really should consider the downsides of this approach (that's a topic for another thread). 

Unfortunate because we are not always willing to fund (read taxes) increased services for monitoring imports by USDA APHIS. The agency is not only fiscally strapped, but has to address and respond to multiple situations affecting many agricultural industries. Look at the logging and lumber sector alone: $420M annually spent to minimize the affects of some other imported vectors. Examples include Sudden Oak Death, Emerald Ash Borer, and the Asian Longhorned Beetle. The Ash Borer is now moving into my state, and it is being assisted by happy campers brings loads of infected firewood over the border from infected adjacent states. 

Oh, don't forget another "imported" treat: The Zebra Mussel which is now common in our state waters. Ignorant boaters are dropping them all over the place. 

Pests and disease transfers on a worldwide and even a local basis has a long history. The fact remains that if CCD is indeed an "imported" strain of virus, it is up to us as beekeepers to follow procedures to minimize the spread of this virus by screening our purchases and our transfer of bees, and also avoid the contamination and transfer of equipment. And, probably most important of all, develop a working congressional lobby that speaks on our behalf -- we shouldn't complain about future increases in fees to attain these goals.

My 2 cents.

MM


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## Hillside (Jul 12, 2004)

I just had a chance to listen to Ira Flatow on public radio do a spot on it. The entymologists he interviewed very specifically stated that they do not yet know if the virus is a *cause* of CCD or merely a very good *marker* for it. A good deal more work needs to be done.


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## Hillside (Jul 12, 2004)

By the way. Hasn't Canada been accepting Aussie bees for quite a few years? They certainly have had varroa all this time, but no CCD? What's with that?


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## MichelleB (Jan 29, 2006)

Hillside, I just asked that same question on another thread (re Canada). Any of our Canadian members care to comment?


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

I have heard many accounts of CCD like events from Canadian guys. I actually had one oldtimer client refer to CCD as the "Canadian bee virus" a long time before this latest hubbub.


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

'"Now, Australia is being eyed as a potential source of the virus." '

"Didn't Jim Fischer prophesy this months ago?"
indypartirige

Yes indeed, and so did several others. I asked the same question on 4.9.07 and got many skeptical responses on this board.


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## Beekeeper1958 (Sep 25, 2006)

OK so say it is a virus that's causing CCD.
I have yet to hear WHERE the bees are when they open a hive that's gone with CCD.
Everything I've seen shows all the beeks saying "that hives empty" and they show a hive with NO BEES.
None alive and none dead.
Wouldn't the last one out dye trying to clean out the hive ???
Just my observation.


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## suttonbeeman (Aug 22, 2003)

Church.......If I live close to the state line how do i keep my bees from flying across it??? THere is no way for Ca. to be able to supply enough bees for pollination of almonds....and beekeepers have to move hives to be profitable and pay the bills>.

Now about the virus.....I still believe when it all comes to a head, that something has weakened the bees immune system and let he virus do its damage. That something in my opinion is systemic insecticide that we all know as Goucho, Provo, Admire.....neonicotineoid insecticides. All that said there are many colonies dying due to mites, mite related stress mite related controls used which damage the queenm drones and bees in general. But the CCD will be linked back to sysyemic insecticide!!! Wait and see!!!!1


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## notaclue (Jun 30, 2005)

Does this virus stay alive without the bee host?

Is that why it takes some time before robbing, shb and wax moths start invading a collapsed hive, because they can sense it? 

Do healthy minimal stressed colonies have a resistance just by being robust? 

Didn't one of the reports comment about Royal Jelly imported from China as also turning up positive for the virus?

Got more questions just too late to work the brain...


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## JaiPea (Sep 27, 2005)

Since when does a hint turn into blame?

"This does not identify IAPV as the cause of CCD," said
Pettis. "What we have found is strictly a strong correlation
of the appearance of IAPV and CCD together. We have not
proven a cause-and-effect connection."

One can rephrase the above quotation with a one-word change and be just as correct.

"This does not identify varroa as the cause of CCD," said
Pettis. "What we have found is strictly a strong correlation
of the appearance of varroa and CCD together. We have not
proven a cause-and-effect connection."

Reading on:

"I still believe that multiple factors are involved in CCD,"
said Jeff Pettis, "and what we need to do is look at
combinations such as parasites, stress and nutrition
(together with the virus)."

Reading on a little further:

> IAPV-afflicted bees are typically found dead outside their hives.

The primary definition of CCD is that there are no bees dead outside the hive, and it was called disappearing disease before it was renamed CCD.

> Also open is the question of how the virus arrived in the US.
> One finger of suspicion points to Australia, from where the
> US began importing honeybees in 2004 - the very year that CCD
> appeared in US hives.

This ignores the fact that disappearing disease was reported in Florida two years before imports began. Also, Australia is an island that has a strict quarantine with stringent rules and regulations governing the importation of queen stock. It seems like an unlikely source of a new pathogen.

Were did IAPV originate? The researchers in Israel isolated it but no one has identified the source yet, and they also found IAPV in royal jelly imported from China.

The article at http://tinyurl.com/2kbtjt notes that information is not being shared between members of the CCD team.

Some of the other members however are frustrated because
they too are being kept out of the loop.

"One would hope that if they had some new information that
was germane to solving the problem, whoever it is, would
share it with the rest of us. But we haven’t seen anything,
we’ve only heard rumors," says one of the members who
wished not be identified.


The jury is still out.


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## huggy (Jun 23, 2007)

Jaipea, a hint turns into blame when the press gets ahold of it. I think it'll be found to be a combination of things that contribute to the collapse. Maybe the disease makes all the bees thirsty and they go looking for water and die in flight away from the hive? Maybe it should be called "Lemmings Disease". Who knows what we'll find.


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

"...Australia is an island that has a strict quarantine with stringent rules and regulations governing the importation of queen stock. It seems like an unlikely source of a new pathogen." JaiPea

This by no means that they would never develop a novel virus that could be exported to other countries. The chief stock and trade of a virus is the ability to mutate regularly.

If an imported or exotic virus is deadly only in the presence of Varroa stressed hive that just came off a pollination that exposed said hive to sub lethal neonicatinoids, then what can you really say was the cause of death?

JaiPea what is your source for the statement about the royal jelly?


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## mountainvalleybee (May 13, 2007)

*acute paralysis virus*

honeybees as well as most creatures have always faced survivability issues, it is only with the advent of faster modes of travel or transmission that they are now more likely to have more of these issues at a single time, the only real answer is honeybees with a very broad genetic base which will lead to possibly more inbuilt tolerance and the chance for adaptability or mutation, also bees with broad genetics allows for easier expression of recessive genes which may have built in characteristics which may help with their survivability problems. it seems that in some cases beekeeping is almost back to square one with selection, some who are on the survivability track using ferals and other survivor types have this broadened base and will be more likely to have most of their bees survive as long as they continue selection and do not go to extremes to protect their bees and allow for survival of the best.


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## JaiPea (Sep 27, 2005)

> This by no means that they would never develop a novel virus
> that could be exported to other countries. The chief stock
> and trade of a virus is the ability to mutate regularly.

IAPV is not a novel virus, it is in Asia (China) and the Middle East (Israel, and now that it is known how to test for it chances are that it will be found many more places (even here...).

> If an imported or exotic virus is deadly only in the presence
> of Varroa stressed hive that just came off a pollination that
> exposed said hive to sub lethal neonicatinoids, then what can
> you really say was the cause of death?

China and Israel have varroa, and they have not had the level of CCD that we have. There's no reason to believe their hives are any less stressed than ours.

> what is your source for the statement about the royal jelly?

Google IAPV and China, and you'll get lots. Not everything out there consists of sensational extracts and false conclusions, there are some descriptions which deserve reading e.g.

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-8/118914209659770.xml&coll=1

"We don't know how IAPV got here," said Jeffery Pettis, an entomologist with the federal government's Bee Research Laboratory. "All we know is it's in packaged bees from Australia and royal jelly from China. ... We're not making a claim at this time about Australian imports, because we might have had IAPV before we began importing bees. But because we found other pathogens in the royal jelly, right now we recommend that beekeepers do not use imported royal jelly."

Another conclusion which is implied rather than explicit.

"All of the infected honeybee operations sampled in the study either used, or were intermingled with, imported bees from Australia."

It appears that the scientists did not test any packages directly from Australia, and if so that has to be a blunder of the first order - pointing fingers based on suspicion instead of fact. The Australian bees could have been contaminated by IAPV after landing here if they are more susceptible than our bees.

There seems to be at least as much innuendo as facts in this report that was leaked prematurely.


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## sierrabees (Jul 7, 2006)

The reason these reports are often witheld from the public is exactly what we are seeing in this thread. The report only details one experiment which shows a statistical link between the virus and CCD. The researchers make it very plain that they are not claiming the virus is the direct or only cause of the disease. It is the media and readers like us who are jumping to that conclusion, then criticizing the research. Next, we interpolate from the results to subjectively support our own pet hypotheses. Back Off. We are looking at a work in progress and saying we don't like the primer on the canvas.


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## JaiPea (Sep 27, 2005)

> And for the record, the story corroborates what Jim Fischer has been saying.

> "Now, Australia is being eyed as a potential source of the virus."
>
> Didn't Jim Fischer prophesy this months ago?

Jim is of the opinion that there should be testing of imported bees in general, but by no means does he think Australian bees are to blame for IAPV. In fact, he has attacked the entire rationale behind blaming Australian bees and went so far as to write:

"I humbly apologize on behalf of the US to every
beekeeper in Australia for the baseless accusations
and unjustified disparagement leveled in your
direction as a result of a research project where
the wheels came completely off."

Jim may pop up here, but for anybody interested in reading his complete treatise, see http://tinyurl.com/27suet


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

I have always been uneasy about the importation of anything. So many disasters have occurred in flora and fauna.

The problem IMO in not with interstate pollinators (although they certainly are a vector) but with international exportation. Close the borders to all importation of bees, including Canada (sorry Canadian friends).


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## Church (May 31, 2007)

suttonbeeman said:


> Church.......If I live close to the state line how do i keep my bees from flying across it??? THere is no way for Ca. to be able to supply enough bees for pollination of almonds....and beekeepers have to move hives to be profitable and pay the bills>.
> 
> Now about the virus.....I still believe when it all comes to a head, that something has weakened the bees immune system and let he virus do its damage. That something in my opinion is systemic insecticide that we all know as Goucho, Provo, Admire.....neonicotineoid insecticides. All that said there are many colonies dying due to mites, mite related stress mite related controls used which damage the queenm drones and bees in general. But the CCD will be linked back to sysyemic insecticide!!! Wait and see!!!!1


Well, there are California laws prohibiting beekeeping near mandarin orange groves, the same could apply for state boundries. It need not even be a point of state boundries but geographical sections...........not many bees will make it across the deserts of Nevada or Arizona.......so there are natural boundries to control spread. Trucking in bees from across the nation certainly is not only a recipe for epidemic disease spread, but can stress the bees enough to weaken their immunity so virii such as IAPV can flourish. Not that there is any indication that IAPV needs a weakened state; it seems plenty virulent on its own.

If the report on IAPV is correct its very fatal; no one will profit if there are no crops or bees. Interstate quarantine may slow or prevent some from being infected until there are more answers; if you suggest that we should ignore a pathogenic virus to profit then the entire industry, including agriculture is doomed. If the practice of migratory interstate pollenation continues without checks, it will not be IF it will be WHEN? the entire industry fails. 

California has enough resources and room to provide ALL the bees needed for in state pollination and if smart would ban all out of state bees and build up local stocks.........thus ensuring the prevention of a total collapse.....after all, if half the bees die each year, there wont be enough bees nationally to supply them anyhow..........its time to quarantine until more is learned. A huge blunder is to bring in thousands of nucs from Australia. 

California almond growers could be self sufficient in hives within 3 years and as a whole save money by using their own instate hives for pollination; they are just too short sighted to see that pandemic problems such as CCD COST them more money in the long run than securing clean and localized hives for their use. Theres no way they will survive if they continue to import diseased bees as they are doing.........foolish behavior and unregulated. Its time the USDA put a stop to imports both internationally and interstate.

I'm sure if IAPV is as virulent as reported, most commercial keepers will not be able to afford to be in business for long.....if they continue to have lax quarantine standards. Theres no profit in wholesale loss.

In the long run, with quarantine and strict regulation, the industry as a whole may survive, without it, there is nothing stopping widespread infection and the ultimate fate; complete failure of the industry.......... 

Theres nothing to suggest that facing insecticide use should be curtailed, in fact all factors; nosema c., pesticides, chemicals used in hives, better management and rules and regulations to prevent the spread of infectious diseases should be addressed. Migratory practices as a whole are extremely stressful on many levels, it spreads infectious diseases such as Nosema c., IAPV and other virii, parasites such as varroa and t. mites, and thus forces the keepers to medicate, fumigate and mitigate.........with chemicals......another stress.

If you curtail the interstate trucking of hives, you reduce MOST stresses associated, if the keepers cant survive with that; let them find another job or state..........simply put, if the choice is healthy bees or wealthy beekeepers, the choice is evident, since if it continues unchecked, there will be NO beekeepers at all.


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## williebeeman (May 5, 2004)

THE BEE QUESTIONS THAT BUG YOU


If a virus is killing off bees, is it safe for humans to consume honey, or bee pollen, or royal jelly? Are organic bees less vulnerable? What about all these other suggested causes of the bees’ “disappearing disease”? If you see some strange bee behavior, who you gonna call? We handle these questions and more in the wake of the journal Science’s latest study on Colony Collapse Disorder.
Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, is characterized by the rapid disappearance of a bee colony even though there seems to be no reason for them to vanish. One week, the hive seems to be buzzing, with plenty of food. The next week, the bees are gone to who knows where. Scientists took note of CCD's rise a year ago and have suggested a range of causes for the phenomenon - including parasites, pesticide poisoning, global warming and the stress of the bees being moved around by commercial pollination operations.
The latest research cites a correlation with another factor, the presence of a little-known virus that was first isolated in Israel. But the mystery has not yet been solved, and researchers say they still have more questions than answers. Msnbc.com users had questions as well, and to answer them, I consulted research entomologist Jay Evans at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service and reviewed my notes from past interviews. Here's a sampling of the frequently asked questions:
I was wondering if there in any research on possible effects to humans. I personally take bee pollen every day for vitamins, minerals, amino acids, energy, etc. Believe it or not, I also take it as a possible antivirus [measure]. My children take daily spoons full of honey to help with allergies. Any thoughts? - William Brewer
"Honey and pollen, and more recently royal jelly, have been ruled out for any human diseases," Evans said. He explained that the suspect virus in particular, known as the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus, "is not on the radar screen for any disease outside of honeybees."
Evans said honey can contain bacterial spores that cause botulism in human infants. "That very rarely gets into the honey from the plants," he said, and that's why experts advise against feeding honey to infants less than a year old.
As for bee pollen and royal jelly, the virus may not be a concern, but some skeptics say those substances are of dubious health value and may bring on allergy attacks instead of warding them off. Bee propolis - the "glue" that holds the hives together - may have some health properties but also poses an allergy risk, according to the published literature.
If there are no dead bees being found, then how can we say for certain they are dying? Can the Africanized honey bees and their migration into the United States be a contributing factor if not a cause? Do we know if regular honeybees migrate and, if so, do we know anything about the patterns or timing? How long exactly have we been keeping track of bee movements? If it is less than, say, 200 years, can we really rule out that this is just a pre-existing pattern? - Brad Schader
"They're not finding the dead bees in high numbers, which actually is a good indicator of what's going on," Evans said. If, for instance, pesticides were the primary factor behind the flight of the honeybee, scientists would expect to find bunches of dead bees lying around the hive. Instead, it looks as if the individual bees just fly off and die.
"Do they simply peter out and lose energy? Or do they actually get disoriented? Both of those have been tied to diseases in the past," Evans said.
Bee turnover rates are typically high during the summer foraging season, Evans acknowledged. "In the summer, a 20,000-bee colony will completely turn over in about 30 days," he said.
Penn State entomologist Diana Cox-Foster, the lead author for the Science study, provided some additional perspective in an e-mail. If statistics scare you, feel free to skip over these paragraphs:
"A nationwide survey initiated in spring 2007 by the Apiary Inspectors of America (van Engelsdorp et al., 2007) suggests that a 17 percent loss of colonies is considered normal in an average year. This is astonishing, given that one would be hard-pressed to find another agricultural commodity that could sustain a 17 percent loss annually. This same survey also documented a recent increase in losses across the nation. An estimated 22 percent of beekeepers suffered CCD and lost on average 44.5 percent of their operation.
"In Pennsylvania since 1930, bee colonies have regularly been inspected for disease; thus, data from Pennsylvania provide an ideal database to monitor changes in incidences of bee diseases. To determine the scope of CCD, Dennis vanEngelsdorp (the acting state apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture) in conjunction with Apiary Inspectors of America has conducted a recent survey of Pennsylvania beekeepers that reveals a significant number of colonies collapsing with CCD.
"Among beekeepers owning 43 percent of Pennsylvania colonies and responding to the survey, the CCD-suffering beekeepers lost an average of 73 percent of their hives (ranging from 55 to 100 percent), compared with non-CCD suffering beekeepers who lost an average of 25 percent of their colonies (ranging from 18 to 31 percent). Of significance, those reporting CCD own a quarter of all bee colonies in Pennsylvania. These losses translate into limited pollination resources for Pennsylvania and increased costs to both growers and consumers.
"In Pennsylvania, the current cost of pollination has increased by 50 percent and may increase even more as the 2007 season progresses."
As for the Africanized honey bees, Evans noted that they've been around for a couple of decades in the American Southwest, and there doesn't seem to be any correlation between the onslaught of the "killer bees" and the rise of CCD.
Domesticated bees have been having a hard time in recent years, not just because of the competition from killer bees, but also because of the spread of parasites such as Varroa mites. A cold winter here or a dry summer there can also deal a blow to bee colonies.
"There are years, winters essentially, that are bad for bees - with maybe 30 percent mortality," Evans said. But Colony Collapse Disorder is a pattern of bee loss that scientists haven't seen much before.
"These colonies where the bees just disappeared, two weeks before they were very robust. That points to someting new, as opposed to the winter losses that we've seen," Evans said.
Cox-Foster theorized that bee disappearances may have arisen as an evolutionary adaptation to past virus infections: Something in the stressed-out bee might trigger an urge to flee or short-circuit its directional sense, in order to save the rest of the colony from infection. 
The bee death mystery was solved long, long ago. I have been shocked you and others in the media do not read more. Note the following [article]: "A parasite common to Asian bees has spread to Europe and the Americas and is behind the mass disappearance of honeybees in many countries... says a Spanish scientist.... the culprit is a microscopic parasite called Nosema ceranae. ..." - Stephen Stiltner
Scientists did mention Nosema in the latest report, and I referred to it in my article as well. "It's all over the place," Evans noted. "Both species of that parasite are common in the U.S., and you can't make a strong correlation with the actual syndrome."
There have been previous claims for a CCD-like syndrome called "disappearing disease," reportedly going back as far as 1915, and some entomologists have proposed that the malady is due to a combination of a Nosema-style parasitic attack plus a viral infection. "It's not inconceivable that they co-occur, and only when they're together is a cause and effect," Evans said.
But taken just by itself, the presence of the Nosema parasite is "a pretty poor indicator" for CCD, Evans said.
I recently read several articles about the honeybee die-off at the Organic Consumers Association that I found interesting. I would really like to know if it is true that "organic" bees are not suffering the die-off. - Cathy Evans


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## williebeeman (May 5, 2004)

"We tend to see this phenomenon more in larger commercial beekeepers who migrate," Jeff Pettis, a colleague of Evans' who worked on the latest study in Science, told reporters earlier this week. "So I think just by default, when you're organic-beekeeping, you tend to be a little more labor-intensive, and may not manage as many colonies, nor are you as migratory. I don't know, we've not looked in detail at that."
I suggest you Google for "france bees termidor" and the chemical Fipronil. This chemical was found to be directly responsible for the bee die-off in France and they have banned it. I think the chemical companies are pulling the wool over our eyes and sending us on a wild goose chase for viruses when the real cause of the die-off is insecticides. - Jeff
Cox-Foster said pesticides are "still on the table" as a contributing factor for CCD, and Evans agreed that Fipronil is a "serious chemical that's been shown to affect bees." Researchers are looking into the effects of a variety of pesticides, including a class of chemicals known as neonicotinoids.
"It's not good for bees, for sure, and its usage has increased, but the usage hasn't increased in the past year enough to show a sudden effect, in my opinion," Evans said. "Again, it's one of those things that needs to be ruled out more before we ignore it."
May I suggest the die-off is caused in large part by genetically engineered crops poisoning the bees. ... - Jim Dersch
Cox-Foster said genetically modified crops were "low on the list" of suspects for the cause of CCD. "The evidence to date ... shows that bees feeding on pollen from transgenic corn had as good a survivorship or better survivorship than bees feeding on normal pollen," she said. 
When I read my first "disappearing bees" article (being a keen gardener), I was very much concerned about the bee die-off and over the last few years have paid very much attention to any other articles that I happened upon. Then I read an article stating that the bee is not even indigenous to the U.S. They originally were European bees that were brought over by people that settled here. ... I have to begin to wonder if the bee problem is another excuse for scientists to obtain funding and grants to stir up something that isn't something we need to worry about. Other insects, the wind, birds and the natural order of things help pollinate our crops and according to the article, bees were not a part of that natural process on this continent. I am a firm believer that our importation of non-indigenous animals and insects has affected our natural balance for the worse. - Carrie
It's true that honeybees are not indigenous to the United States, but through the many years that the bees have been here, our economy has come to rely upon them for pollination (in addition to the honey). If all the honeybees were to disappear tomorrow, billions of dollars' worth of agricultural produce would be lost. Of course, scientists are looking at other means of pollination, including different species of bees. The situation may well change in the decades ahead - but adjusting to that changing environment will call for more research, not less.
After finding many dead bees on my driveway and some just walking around, eventually dying as well, I wondered where they were coming from until I discovered a large beehive in towards the top of the canopy of a tree in front of my house. ... After reading your article, I thought that someone locally may be interested in studying this colony which may be carrying some virus. In writing your article, might you have a contact of someone in the Miami area that may be interested in this colony? - Fernando Horruitiner
The best nearby resource would be the agricultural extension service - in your case, the Miami-Dade County Extension Office.
If you have something you want to discuss with a knowledgeable community of beekeepers and researchers, Evans suggests joining the BEE-L discussion list. But as always with such forums, you'd do well to familiarize yourself with the list archives first.
And if you have a humdinger of a question, Evans recommends getting in contact with Jerry Hayes, who conveniently hangs out at Florida's Bureau of Plant and Apiary Inspection. Hayes' column for the American Bee Journal, titled "The Classroom," is as indispensable for bee lovers as "Car Talk" is for car lovers, Evans said. You'll find plenty there about Colony Collapse Disorder and other bee curiosities.


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

This might interest some folks.
Due to the hype surrounding the paper, online access is being
made available before the print edition is available.

Long story short, the paper is utterly meaningless,
due to basic and fatal defects in "methodology".

* Fourth Down, No Yardage Gained (Bee Culture Oct 2007)
*Part 1 of the triology "_Colony Collapse Disorder Disorder_" 

* Practical Implications For Beekeepers (Bee Culture Oct 2007)*
Part 2 of the triology "_Colony Collapse Disorder Disorder_" 

* World Trade, Realpolitik, and Beekeeping (Bee Culture Oct 2007)*
Part 3 of the triology "_Colony Collapse Disorder Disorder_"

* A Beekeeper Reads the Paper (Bee Culture Oct 2007)*
Part 4 of of the triology (no, quadrilogy!) "_Colony Collapse Disorder Disorder_"

* What Happens After What Comes Next (Bee Culture Oct 2007)
*Part 5 of of the triology (no, quadrilogy!) (nope, PENTALOGY!) "_Colony Collapse Disorder Disorder_"

* The Paper Itself (Science Aug 6 2007)*
The Paper Addressed Above

 * The Supplemental Materials For The Paper (Science Aug 6 2007)*
The Details For The Paper Addressed Above

 * The Press Conference Audio Transcript (Aug 5 2007)*
WARNING: A 7 Megabyte mp3 File

And some older articles that also address CCD, some written long before
anyone had any idea this sort of thing would happen. 

*Trade + Bees = CCD (Bee Culture Sept 2007)*
Where it shown that the WTO did to beekeeping what Typhoid Mary did to New York city

 *Tracking A Serial Killer (Bee Culture June 2007)*
Where it is noted that research on CCD is hampered by a lack of a leader, lack of a toxicologist, and a lack of money. 

* Where Are We Going, And What's With This Handbasket? (Bee Culture  Jan 2005)*
Our reporter hangs out at the intersection of science, politics, and beekeeping, because the inevitable train wrecks at that crossing are spectacular.

 * Apis APHIS  (Bee Culture  Dec 2002)
*Our reporter discovers a new species of bee while sitting in a conference room in Washington DC, an event that neither Ripley's nor Guinness has yet recognized for the remarkable feat that it was.


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

Thanks for posting that stuff, just read though the new to me material. 

Looking at the original Sciencexpress article, to me, it says what it says. It gets a little watered down with the news article summary in Science, then gets to be garbage by the time it gets to the general news media.

I think the reason is, many people hear what they want to hear and conclude what they want to conclude. Part of science is built on % confidence in a hypothesis. % Confidence can measured statistically and it can also be subjective such as "the method (or sample size, or scientist, or etc.) used wasn't as good as method X, but better than method Y, and far better than no method at all". I can't calculate my confidence in the paper, but its much better than no info. in this area at all, brings new questions to light, and is a building block for something else.

Many people don't care about science much less taking the time to read and find out what that paper really says. So you get people even on this thread saying or inferring things like, the the involved scientists are so incompetent they didn't even test imported Australian bees. Which is clearly untrue. If you read this thread or a number of the referenced articles you will see they tested imported Australian bees. To be exact, they found an average of 8x10 to the third RNA copies per bee of IAPV. I don't know what that means so they water that down in another article and say it was found in most Australian samples.

People don't want to hear,
"We have not proven a causal relationship between any infectious
agent and CCD; nonetheless, the prevalence of IAPV
sequences in CCD operations, as well as the temporal and
geographic overlap of CCD and importation of IAPVinfected
bees, indicate that IAPV is a significant marker for
CCD." (Cox-Foster et. al.)

What they do want to hear is,
We answered the question game over, better yet its some new virus and we can't do anything about it and it has nothing to do with pesticides I can use at my convenience.

This paper was about a virus as a marker of CCD, not about Neonicotinoids. Why should it mention much about pesticides? There needs to be a separate study looking at Neonicotinoids. And thats been stated clearly by the people involved in the paper, but when you have statements about that in the press conference followed up with a question about possible alien involvement, that pretty much tells the story right there. Many people don't want to hear it, they want to hear their favorite late night TV show, maybe they miss the X-files. 

So the scientist trudge on, shaking there heads, I would presume.

That said, the press conference is still well worth a listen and has good info.


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## JaiPea (Sep 27, 2005)

Michael,

"...you get people even on this thread saying or inferring
things like, the the involved scientists are so incompetent
they didn't even test imported Australian bees. Which is
clearly untrue."

"Incompetence" is your word, not mine. The scientists are not incompetent, they found something under circumstances when the pressures to come up with anything new about CCD is intense.

As to "what is clearly untrue", in at least one writeup was a specific statement that no packaged bees "off the plane" had been tested.

> If you read this thread or a number of the referenced articles
> you will see they tested imported Australian bees.

We must be reading different content.

- What they did was test resident alien bees which had been imported from Australia months earlier from two different suppliers. The bees had been used in the almond orchards and other pollination sites country wide.

- What they did was check "the genetic sequences for bees collected over the past three years from 30 colonies that suffered a collapse and 21 healthy colonies. The presence of IAPV was found to be the best indicator for Colony Collapse Disorder, with a 96.1 percent correlation."

It is not even known that the Australian queens were still resident in the hives that were initially populated by imported packages. Some/many may have been superceded (not unlikely given the experience of other packages Australian bee users). That muddies up the waters even further because IAPV could have come from any of the 20 or so drones that mated with each virgin.

Since the scientists did not test airport-airport packages the conclusions are implicit not explicit i.e. suspicion not fact. That constitutes a blunder in the scientific and engineering worlds because no effort was made to prove the premise.

Australian bees are either a source or highly susceptible and we won't know which until packages flown from Australia directly to the lab are found to have IAPV.

If you can identify a reference anywhere which states that testing was done on imports shipped directly to the lab from Australia I would much appreciate your advising it.

Those who wanted to see testing (and banking of samples) of imported bees so that there would be a method to identify and track issues have been proven correct. Instead of data to investigate/verify suppositions there is no way to track the history of events/incidents.

The known behavior of IAPV "sets bees' wings shivering and eventually causes paralysis. IAPV-afflicted bees are typically found dead outside their hives." This does not match any of the symptoms for CCD, and another factor in this situation is dismissing that fact as a red herring in favor of a supposed genetic mutation (which nobody has even tried to prove exists).

Interestingly, "....In Spain, thousands of colonies are said to have been lost, and up to 40% of Swiss bees are reported to have disappeared or died in the past year. Heavy losses have also been reported in Portugal, Italy and Greece. To date, the official view in the UK is that any reported collapses are the result of varroa, the parasitic mite which was introduced in 1992 into Devon...."


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

From line 16 and 17 of Supporting Online Materials for A Metagenomic Survey of Microbes in Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder, Cox-Foster et. al. See Jim Fishers post above for link.



> "Samples from imported Australian bees were collected directly from shipping packages."


But no they probably didn't do it on the tarmac.


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## JaiPea (Sep 27, 2005)

> From line 16 and 17 of Supporting Online Materials for A 
> Metagenomic Survey of Microbes in Honey Bee Colony Collapse 
> Disorder, Cox-Foster et. al. See Jim Fishers post above for link.

I missed that, good catch.

Scratch one alleged blunder, and will try eating crow for dinner this evening.

Thanks


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

Ha! I enjoy it with Teriyaki sauce and a white wine. Feel free to catch my blunders in the future, more likely to come with each word typed.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I might comment further on this later, when I get caught up with my work,

>>Any of our Canadian members care to comment?


Yes Canadian beekeepers have been accepting Aussi bees for a few years now. I have not heard of the problems being found in these yards as what is being talked in the US. 
Producers have been finding heavier losses over winter,but as I understand, they can associate these losses to a particular problem, unlike that found in the US.
But you come across the occasional producer that wants to get caught up in the CCD spin.


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