Agricultural Research Magazine
May/June 2008 - Vol. 56, No. 5
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/may08/

EXCERPTS

"What I believe is that CCD is likely a combination of factors, as
opposed to a single, discrete cause," Jeff Pettis says.

Four broad classes of potential causes are being studied by ARS
scientists and many others around the country and the world:
pathogens; parasites; environmental stresses, which include
pesticides; and management stresses, including nutrition problems,
mainly from nectar or pollen dearth.

Entomologists Yanping (Judy) Chen and Jay Evans, both with the ARS Bee
Research Laboratory, conducted a detailed genetic screening of several
hundred honey bees that had been collected between 2002 and 2007 from
colonies in Maryland, Pennsylvania, California, and Israel.

"Our study shows that, without question, IAPV has been in this country
since at least 2002," said Chen. "This work makes it clear that IAPV
is NOT a recent introduction from Australia."

But it also neither rules out nor reinforces the association between
IAPV and CCD; it just settles the question of whether the recently
imported Australian bees were the original source

Pettis and his colleagues are testing samples of bees, honey, wax,
pollen, and nectar from CCD-afflicted and non afflicted colonies for a
wide variety of pesticides to see whether there are any patterns of
pesticide residues that could contribute to CCD.

"So far, we've found higher-than expected levels of miticides that
beekeepers use in the wax plus traces of a wide variety of
agricultural chemicals in the pollen and wax, though there was no
consistent pattern in either the levels or the types of chemicals
identified," Pettis says. "No significant levels of agricultural
chemicals were found in any honey"

-- 
Peter L Borst
Danby, NY USA
42.35, -76.50
http://picasaweb.google.com/peterlborst

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