UCSF scientist tracks down suspect in honeybee deaths — I pose this question “are they kidding us?” because this supposed new discovery is over a year old everywhere but in the USA. By May of 2006 this exact finding was all over the place in Europe with the exact same bug. So a year passes and suddenly we make this discovery? The only reference to the research already done in Europe is the comment that researcher in Spain have “recently” shown that this bug can kill a colony. The problem is the supposed “recent” Spanish finding is two years old at least! This only constitutes “recent” if you are an archaeologist. Are we kidding ourselves here or what? What kind of reporting is this?

The following is from yesterday’s SF Chronicle.

A UCSF researcher who found the SARS virus in 2003 and later won a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” for his work thinks he has discovered a culprit in the alarming deaths of honeybees across the United States.

Tests of genetic material taken from a “collapsed colony” in Merced County point to a once-rare microbe that previously affected only Asian bees but might have evolved into a strain lethal to those in Europe and the United States, biochemist Joe DeRisi said Wednesday.

DeRisi said tests conducted on material from dead bees at his Mission Bay lab found genes of the single-celled, spore-producing parasite Nosema ceranae, which researchers in Spain have recently shown is capable of wiping out a beehive.

“It is wise to strike a conservative note, because this is early data, but it is interesting,” he said.

Government scientists who have been tracking the phenomenon they call Colony Collapse Disorder were skeptical, however, saying the parasite had been an early suspect in the bee die-off but that they had concluded it probably was not responsible.

The following is from LAST YEARS Stratford-upon-Avon & District Beekeepers Association Newsletter:

Stratford-upon-Avon & District Beekeepers’ Association: May 2006 Newsletter — During the February meeting, Terry Clare mentioned a new species of Nosema that is devastating colonies in some European countries; many at that meeting seemed to be unaware of this new threat, so here are some details.

In 1996 a new species of Nosema was discovered in Apis cerana, the Asian honeybee, it received the name Nosema ceranae. An assumption was made at that time that this species was specific to A. cerana; however in 2005 Chinese scientists isolated the ‘new’ Nosema species in A. mellifera colonies in Taiwan. In the same year scientists in the Castilla – La Mancha Institute in Spain and the University of Madrid found Nosema ceranae in Apis mellifera in Europe for the first time. This disease vector is only able to be distinguished from Nosema apis, the classic Apis mellifera vector using molecular genetic techniques. The incidence of Nosema in Spain has increased from a level of 10% in 2000 to some 88% in 2004.

Eight colonies in Germany have already been diagnosed positive for N. ceranae and all of these colonies died. The Swiss, Italians, Germans and Austrians have been co-operating in a Europe wide research programme since 2002. In winter 2002/2003 the Nosema infection levels were around 38%. Results from trials in Spain seem to indicate that Nosema infestations are on the increase.

A worrying factor in the latest reports is that colonies appear to be being killed very quickly and losses are occurring during the course of the whole year – bees crawling on the ground in front of the hive is a classic symptom.

During the observations this winter colonies were noted making relatively heavy cleansing flights at 4ºC. This observation seems to indicate a severe need for the bees to defecate. A link to the new Nosema organism however cannot be made conclusively. There is very little known about the course of the disease and its symptoms in Asia.

Reference: ‘Asian Nosema Disease Vector Confirmed – Is this a new Infestation or only now discovered?’ Dr Wolfgang Ritter, Freiburg University. ‘Das Deutsche Bienen Journal’, March issue 2006.

Can’t our experts (or the reporters for that matter) even do a Google search to find out that this is very old news? The kicker? Our great American scientist has a half a million dollar genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation. Cripes. When you compare the newspaper article to the newsletter article in its entirety you shake your head in disbelief at how poorly the newspaper reporting compares to a honeybee newsletter.

Now there is one thing that is never suggested or mentioned. The possibility that the use of a chemical called Fumagillin which is has been used for years to kill Nosema apis may have bred this new bee killing super bug. Almost all of the American beekeeping newsletters out of the great agri-schools in the USA advocate the use of this Pfizer chemical, and often recommend almost casual if not cavalier use.