Voa Agriculture Report - Study Links Virus to Bee Disorder in US, but Questions Remain

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is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report. American beekeeping have been hit hard by what scientists call colony disorder. Almost half of their worker bees have disappeared the past season. CCD... has also been reported in , Europe and South America. Bees fly away from the and never return. Sometimes they are found dead; other they are never found. Many crops and trees depend pollination by bees to help them grow. A new says a virus may be at least partly responsible the disorder in honey bee colonies in the United . This virus is called Israeli acute paralysis virus. It first identified in Israel in two thousand four. Ian at Columbia University in New York and a team the new findings in Science magazine. Doctor Lipkin says virus may not be the only cause. He says may work with other causes to produce the collapse . The team found the virus in colonies with the of a map of honey bee genes that was last year. They examined thirty colonies affected by the . They found evidence of the virus in twenty-five of , and in one healthy colony. The next step is testing of healthy hives. The researchers suggested that the States may have imported the disorder in bees from . They say the bees may carry the virus but be affected. The idea is that unlike many American , the ability of Australian bees to fight disease has been hurt by the varroa mite. This insect attacks bees, which could make the disorder more likely to a hive. Australian bee producers reject these suspicions. And researchers suspect that bee production in the United States down mainly because of the weather. Honey bees gather from flowers and trees. The sweet liquid gives them and material to make honey. But cold weather this in the Midwest reduced the flow of nectar in flowers. Many bees may have starved. Dry conditions in of the country could also be playing a part. Esaias is a NASA space agency scientist who keeps in his free time. He lives in central Maryland, he has found that flowers are blooming a month than they did in nineteen seventy. Wayne Esaias is a group of beekeepers to document nectar flow around country. And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, by Jerilyn Watson. Im Steve Ember.

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