SYDNEY: A virus, potentially imported from Australia, has been identified as the likely cause of a mysterious blight that has decimated honey bee populations across the USA.
[…]
“Our extensive study suggests the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) may be a potential cause of colony collapse disorder,” said one of the experts behind the discovery, epidemiologist W. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University in New York. “Our next step is to ascertain whether this virus – alone or in concert with other factors such as microbes, toxins and stressors – can induce CCD in healthy bees.
[…]
The virus, first isolated by Israeli researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 2002, includes symptoms such as shivering wings, progressive paralysis and bees dying outside the hive – some of which have been linked to CCD.

Another twist in the tale links the appearance of CCD with potentially IAPV-infected bees from Australia. The researchers said that all of the beekeeping operations in the study that were infected with IAPV had imported bees from Australia or come into contact with them – while none of the uninfected hives had.

Bees had been imported from Australia to bolster pollination efforts following a shortage in 2004, the same year that CCD started to take hold.

Another great Australian export. Killer bees.




  1. Gilgamesh says:

    People were allowed to import bees from another continent for industrial scale pollination? Step one in the process boggles my mind.

    I am no tree hugger by any means, but the very idea of this seems phenomenally stupid.

  2. chuck says:

    I, for one, welcome our new killer bee overlords.

    Aussie, Aussie, Aussie.
    Oy, Oy, Oy!

  3. Awake says:

    Oh the irony.

    (FWIW I have a couple of beehives in my backyard that I tend)

    Beekeepers in Australia clamor to keep bees from foreign countries out of their own, because of common American maladies such as the Veroa Mite. Yet there is a huge export trade of Australian bees to the rest of the world, because Australia has ‘better’ bees. And it turns out that the ‘superior’ bees, when taken out of their native environment, may have been responsible for decimating the local populations.

    Sounds somewhat like what the white people did to the American Indians, or what the conquistadors and missionaries did to all of the Americas.

    The real reason for Colony Collapse Disorder? Work them as hard as possible until they die prematurely, steal their real real food (honey) and give them junk food (corn syrup), make them reproduce as much as possible to have lots of workers, kill their leader (queen) regularly and replace it with a better and more docile egg layer, and so on. If commercial bees were people they would be the equivalent of the American slavery at it’s worst times.

  4. GRtak says:

    I have to agree with AWAKE on this. I am also a beekeeper, and have read a bunch about the various malodies affecting bees. And they all seem to be by us humans trying to get the bees to behave in a manor that isn’t natural, like using foundation that forces tham to build a different size honeycomb, eat cheap food that is not even good for us, and moving them all over the country.

    But I believe the big culprit is the corn syrup. A good portion of it comes from genetically modified crops that produce pesticides in the corn. They eat the corn syrup and are weakened, then a variety of pests and maladies help make them even weaker.

  5. sargasso_c says:

    Most inhospitable climate on Earth, bush fires the size of belgium, man eating crocodiles, most poisonous spiders, most venomous snakes, great white sharks, outback serial killers, floppy hats with corks, an accent that makes your ears bleed and now “plague bees”!

  6. LDA says:

    #3 Awake

    There is strict quarantine in Australia because, as an island, imports are the only way to introduce diseases from outside. That does not mean that a virus can’t develop in Australia and be exported. Maybe you should blame the American Government for being too lax (assuming the problem could have been detected).

    Also, if Australia is so strict, how did the virus get there? Did it come with foreign bees, if so aren’t the Australian beekeepers right to ‘clamour’? If a disease spreads widely but is kept out of a controlled environment (like an island) by strict quarantine isn’t that good for everyone?

  7. ECA says:

    TRANS PLANTING ANY creature, has its problems..
    WE have proven THAT many times.
    That includes HUMANS.

  8. MikeN says:

    Yea, just blame the Jews for everything.

  9. Buzz says:

    It’s the accent. They pronounce it Bzz in Oz.

  10. Glenn E. says:

    I’m thinking that all this might just be a coverup for Monsanto’s modified corn’s pollen, poisoning US bees. One could also ay that CCD stared soon after the “frankencorn” began being grown in large crops. Was the genetically altered corn tested as to its effects on bees?

  11. GRtak says:

    I doubt it was tested for much of anything.


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