Unless you've been following reports on colony collapse disorder (CCD), you're not likely to recognize that IAPV is an acronym for Israeli acute paralysis virus – a virus that was implicated in CCD earlier this year. A little over a week ago the Agricultural Research Service (U.S. Department of Agriculture) distributed a press release reporting that IAPV has been in the United States since at least 2002.
The earlier study demonstrated a compelling geographical and temporal overlap between CCD and IAPV, suggesting that IAPV is the cause of CCD. The new research, published as a note in the American Bee Journal,1 indicates that the temporal overlap is less complete than suggested by the earlier report. As the investigators acknowledge, the new results don't rule out IAPV as a cause of CCD, but they do suggest that the relationship between the two is complex.
1The article is not available on line so far as I can tell.
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