Malcolm Sanford wrote:

> Reasons for decline in colony populations are numerous and might even be a combination of things including: pesticide poisoning, nutritional imbalance, genetic susceptibility, as well as diseases, pests and/or predators. In the past, names given to describe colony conditions such as "autumn collapse," "spring dwindling," and "disappearing disease," have not been helpful in determining solutions to perceived problems.

> Some lines of bees are inherently more healthy and productive in specific geographic areas than others. The main reason one the almost universal recommendation for any problems, requeening, has a good chance of success is due to the great variability that exists in honey bees in the United States.

> It is also a myth that better stock exists elsewhere. This has and continues to result in the practice of introducing bee stocks from one area of the world to another. Introduction of Africanized honey bees and the Asiatic bee mite, Varroa jacobsoni, to South America and now the tracheal mite, Acarapis woodi R., to Central America and the United States shows how dangerous this can be ... it is becoming more and more clear that the practice of importing bee stock must be stopped and genetic selection of stocks in specific geographic areas be substituted, if progress against bee disease is to result.

* * *

Maryann Frazier is coordinating research on bees and pesticides. She
says one analysis of pollen that bees had stored in affected and
unaffected hives has been completed, but the work didn't point to a
culprit. The colonies with the greatest variety of pesticides at the
highest concentrations "are doing quite well," she says.

Some of Jay Evans' work, too, has touched on pesticides. He
specializes in honeybee genetics, and he's approaching the problem by
looking at activity in genes known to kick in when bees encounter
certain stressors. He and his colleagues are checking bees from
affected and healthy colonies for any heightened responses by genes
known to indicate exposure to pesticides or pathogens. No clear
pattern had emerged in either the pesticide- or pathogen-related
genes. "I keep looking," Evans says.

http://www.sciencenews.org/

* * *

Dr. Charles Wick used a new system of genetic analysis to identify
pathogens in ground-up bee samples from California. He found several
viruses, including members of a recently identified genus called
iflaviruses. It is not known whether these small, RNA-containing
viruses, which infect the Varroa mite, are pathogenic to bees.
Skowronski forwarded the samples to DeRisi, who also found evidence of
the viruses, along with genetic material from N. ceranae. "There was a
lot of stuff from Nosema, about 25% of the total," Skowronski said.
"That meant there was more than there was bee RNA. That leads me to
believe that the bee died from that particular pathogen."

http://www.latimes.com/

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