[Pollinator] From Greenwire -- AGRICULTURE: New viruses could be linked to honeybee decline

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AGRICULTURE: New viruses could be linked to honeybee decline (Wednesday, June 8, 2011)

Scientists have discovered new viruses that are present in healthy honeybees, adding key information that could help researchers understand why colonies are dying off.

The study published yesterday in the journal PLoS One found that Lake Sinai virus strains 1 and 2 replicate in bees, that six honeybee viruses are most plentiful in the summer and that healthy bees carry fungi, bacteria and mites.

This is the first study to show what viruses exist normally in healthy colonies, said Christi Heintz, executive director of Project Apis m., a nonprofit bee research group.

The U.S. honeybee population has declined since 2006. Researchers are not sure why but blame Colony Collapse Disorder, an unexplained phenomenon with no cure. The United Nations has blamed honeybee deaths at least partly on declining flowering plants and insecticides.

Honeybees pollinate 130 types of crops in the United States, equivalent to more than $15 billion annually, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The study released yesterday will spur more research, Heintz said.

"We might isolate some of these viruses and then try to reinoculate a colony to see if there is one or a combination of several that really bring a colony down," Heintz said. "Are these pathogens working independently or in combination to bring a colony down? Now we just know that they're there, which is a huge step because we didn't know it before" (Nicole Ostrow, Bloomberg, June 7). -- AP

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