A virus discovered in Israel is responsible for the disappearance of the bees

Researchers speculate that the phenomenon of the collapse of bee colonies that has spread throughout the world in the past year was caused by the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) that paralyzes bees and causes their death, and which was discovered in Israel in 2004

A team of researchers from the Malliman School of Public Medicine from Columbia University, from the Pennsylvania State University, from the US Department of Agriculture, and from Arizona University and the 454-Life Sciences Company, discovered a significant link between the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) and colony collapse disorder among honey bees (CCD – colony collapse disorder).

The findings, which represent an important step towards responding to the collapse that led to the collapse of beehives all over the US, were published in the journal Science. In colony collapse syndrome, bee colonies lose their working bees without any explanation. The phenomenon is manifested in the loss of 50-90 percent of the speakers in the colony in hives across the USA. The consortium of scientists that investigated the role of virus infection in this phenomenon was headed by Diana Cox-Foster, a professor in the Department of Entomology at Pennsylvania State University, and her friend Ian Lipkanin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunology at Columbia University, Geoffrey Pettis, head of the team of researchers at the ARS Bee Research Laboratory, and Prof. Nancy Moran from the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Dr. Lipkin and his team at Meliman, along with the 454 life sciences team used revolutionary genetic technologies to study microflora in collapsed hives, normal hives and imported royal jelly. The candidate pathogens were tested for the purpose of examining their connection to the phenomenon by studying samples collected by the Ministry of Agriculture and the University of Pennsylvania at several sites over the past three years.

Using the 454 platform for DNA screening and methodical analyzes developed at Columbia University, Dr. Lipkin's team searched for the fingerprints of viruses, bacteria, fungi and other parasites in thousands of sequences. Each sequence suspected to be of parasite origin was thoroughly examined to confirm their relationship to CCD and their relationship to known and unknown pathogens.

IAPV, a virus not previously reported in the US, transmitted by house dust mites and the Casmir bee virus (KBV), were found only in hives infected with the collapse syndrome. The researchers reported that IAPV was found in all four samples of collapsing hives, in two of four queen food samples, and in samples from Australia. KBV was found in three of the four CCD samples, but not in the royal jelly. Therefore, only one living creature was diagnosed in accordance with the CCD - finding IAPV in all the CCD samples made it possible to distinguish unequivocally between a state of collapse and a normal state of a hive.

"This is a new and powerful strategy for examining outbreaks of infectious diseases and finding their source, said Dr. Cox-Foster. "The discovery is credited to the innovative methods used to diagnose differences in infectious diseases in humans to meet the challenge in agricultural epidemiology," said Dr. Lipkin. The good synergy between the members of the group led to the integration of entomology, microbiology and bioinformatics together - and allowed us to move towards a solution to the very complex problem in front of us."

This is the first time that the IAPV virus has been detected in the US. The virus was first described in Israel, when infected bees developed tremors in their wings, which turned into paralysis and then died right outside the hive. Imports of bees from Australia to the US began in 2004, coincidentally at the same time as the first reports of the collapse of the first hives.

A large number of explanations and theories have been linked to the bee disappearance phenomenon, among the explanations that have been tested: the effect of increasing cellular radiation or radiation from other sources, changes in the weather and global warming, changes in the diet of the bees, or unknown viruses. In any case, even now the evidence for the link between the virus and the abandoned beehives is indirect and it is necessary to focus the research now to understand the mechanism that caused the virus to upset the balance in the beehive. The hypothesis is that the virus only harmed the queens, thus preventing them from passing on the instructions to the bees that work through the sense of smell, and from losing their way.

The phenomenon of the collapse of bee colonies has also reached Israel

Billions of bees did not return to their hives