waldig wrote:

>Does anyone know - especially the subscribers in Australia - if there are
or have been CCD-like cases in Australia related to IAPV.  

From Scientific American:

> Lipkin and co-workers found that seemingly healthy Australian bees were
infected with the virus and point out that all of the CCD hives they
examined included or spent time near imported Australian bees. Beekeepers
from Down Under have reported a "disappearing disease" but not on the scale
of CCD, Pettis said during a press conference Wednesday.

> One difference, he said, could be parasitic varroa mites, which suppress
bees' immune systems and have driven down the U.S. bee population by 30
percent in the last 25 years, but are not found in Australia. "We know it's
a primary stressor," he added. "I still believe that multiple factors are
involved in CCD and we must test [them] in a more rigorous fashion."

> "I was told by the Israeli [beekeeping] extension people that there are
some recent indications for a small-scale CCD-like phenomenon in Israel,"
[says Ilan Sela].

> IAPV could in theory be causing CCD by inserting its genetic material into
bee genes for pheromones or other molecules that coordinate hive behavior,
thereby disrupting those genes, a possibility that he and the CCD working
group plan to test.

> Until researchers have cracked the CCD mystery, Cox-Foster advised
beekeepers Wednesday to keep their bees well fed and free of mites.

Pete

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