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So a group at Penn State recently published a short study in Science which utilizes 454 sequencing to investigate the decline/death of honeybee hives.
A metagenomic survey of microbes in honey bee colony collapse disorder. Cox-Foster, et al, Science. 2007 Oct 12;318(5848):283-7. Epub 2007 Sep 6.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) basically results in the wasting away of a bee colony with the bees dying after failing to properly tend their hive. There was some prior indication that a virus may be responsible for this problem.
I was just blown away by the ease with which this study was conducted...get some bees and royal jelly from infected and control hives, make cDNA, sequence en masse.
Long story short, they found the usual flora expected in honeybees, but also a convincing association with a particular class of virus: "One organism, Israeli acute paralysis virus of bees, was strongly correlated with CCD."
Maybe it's just me, but maybe one of your first suspects in a case like this should've been anything called an acute paralysis virus of bees!
A metagenomic survey of microbes in honey bee colony collapse disorder. Cox-Foster, et al, Science. 2007 Oct 12;318(5848):283-7. Epub 2007 Sep 6.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) basically results in the wasting away of a bee colony with the bees dying after failing to properly tend their hive. There was some prior indication that a virus may be responsible for this problem.
I was just blown away by the ease with which this study was conducted...get some bees and royal jelly from infected and control hives, make cDNA, sequence en masse.
Long story short, they found the usual flora expected in honeybees, but also a convincing association with a particular class of virus: "One organism, Israeli acute paralysis virus of bees, was strongly correlated with CCD."
Maybe it's just me, but maybe one of your first suspects in a case like this should've been anything called an acute paralysis virus of bees!