CNN

To understand more about honey bee colony collapse, we invite you to listen to the June 25th edition of “Blue Herald Radio”, available in our podcast archives. Dr. Dewey Caron explains what the collapse is all about and the mystery behind it.

A virus found in healthy Australian honey bees may be playing a role in the collapse of honey bee colonies across the United States, researchers reported Thursday.

Colony collapse disorder has killed millions of bees — up to 90 percent of colonies in some U.S. beekeeping operations — imperiling the crops largely dependent upon bees for pollination, such as oranges, blueberries, apples and almonds.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says honey bees are responsible for pollinating $15 billion worth of crops each year in the United States. More than 90 fruits and vegetables worldwide depend on them for pollination.

Signs of colony collapse disorder were first reported in the United States in 2004, the same year American beekeepers started importing bees from Australia.

The disorder is marked by hives left with a queen, a few newly hatched adults and plenty of food, but the worker bees responsible for pollination gone.

The virus identified in the healthy Australian bees is Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) — named that because it was discovered by Hebrew University researchers.

Although worker bees in colony collapse disorder vanish, bees infected with IAPV die close to the hive, after developing shivering wings and paralysis. For some reason, the Australian bees seem to be resistant to IAPV and do not come down with symptoms.

Scientists used genetic analyses of bees collected over the past three years and found that IAPV was present in bees that had come from colony collapse disorder hives 96 percent of the time.

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