Virus linked to destruction of honeybee hives
By USA TODAY
Scientists may have discovered the cause of a devastating syndrome in honeybees that has destroyed 50% to 90% of hives in the USA — posing enormous problems for crops that depend on them to reproduce. The culprit, reported in the journal ScienceThursday, may be the Israeli acute paralysis (IAP) virus. Colony collapse disorder, or CCD, first surfaced in 2004 in U.S. hives. It kills the worker bees that go out to find pollen. Theories on the cause have ranged from exposure to pollen from genetically modified crops to the impact of electronic waves from cellphone towers. None have panned out. But using a new genetic technique to identify the various microbes and viruses that inhabit bees, scientists found a strong correlation between bees infected with the IAP virus and those from hives hit with CCD. This is the first good marker scientists have found to explain the destruction of hives and could aid beekeepers in knowing which hives
By USA TODAY
Scientists may have discovered the cause of a devastating syndrome in honeybees that has destroyed 50% to 90% of hives in the USA — posing enormous problems for crops that depend on them to reproduce. The culprit, reported in the journal Science
No comments:
Post a Comment