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alfreda89 ([personal profile] alfreda89) wrote2007-04-27 10:55 pm

More on honeybee die-off

There is, of course, a lot of disagreement about this -- but at least people are hard at work trying to find a solution.

Sabin Russell, SF Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, April 26, 2007


"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."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/26/MNGK7PFOMS1.DTL

[identity profile] martianmooncrab.livejournal.com 2007-04-28 05:37 am (UTC)(link)
I dont think that wild swarm I saw yesterday got the memo on the die off..

[identity profile] alfreda89.livejournal.com 2007-04-28 08:14 pm (UTC)(link)
You can either cheer them on or duck, in case they have an Africanized queen...

[identity profile] martianmooncrab.livejournal.com 2007-04-29 12:41 am (UTC)(link)
they didnt look like they were from Africa, they looked like regular old honeybees, and they didnt attack us.