Monday 24 August 2009

CATCH THE BUZZ - Marker For CCD Found

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CATCH THE BUZZ

 

A Single molecular marker found for Colony Collapse Disorder. Proteins are the key.

 

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Protein feeding pays off with better bee health, better survival, better production, and better wintering.  Learn More.

If your ribosome is compromised, then you can't respond to pesticides, you can't respond to fungal infections or bacteria or inadequate nutrition because the ribosome is central to the survival of any organism. So says a report in Science Daily. You need proteins to survive," says May Berenbaum, entomology professor and department head at the University of Illinois, along with being an affiliate of the Institute for Genomic Biology at Illinois. This observation is the result of work conducted there, funded and assisted by the USDA, with Reed Johnson, a University of Illinois

doctoral student in entomology and first author on the study, and Gene Robinson, entomology and neuroscience professor at U of I and co-principal investigator, and Director of the neuroscience Program at Illinois. Johnson was the recipient of the Eastern Apicultural Society’s prestigious Student Award this year, presented at their annual meeting in August.

 

Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to identify a single, objective molecular marker of the disorder, and to propose an explanation to the mysterious disappearance of American honey bees.

The study made use of the honey bee genome (only recently completed at U of I by Robinson and others) and a genome-based tool, the microarray, to look for differences in gene expression in the guts of healthy honey bees and in those from hives afflicted by CCD.

 

Berenbaum said that they saw that CCD bees suffered "more than their share" of infections with viruses that attack the ribosome, a finding reflected in the Penn State study released last week and reported on here.

 

These so-called picorna-like viruses "hijack the ribosome," she said, taking over the cellular machinery to manufacture only viral proteins, not those needed for the bee to survive or thrive. The list of picorna-like viruses that afflict honey bees is long and includes Israeli acute paralysis virus, which was once suspected of being the primary cause of CCD.

 

The varroa mite is a carrier of picorna-like viruses, and is thought by most researchers to be a key in explaining the virus loads carried by U. S. bees.

 

The researchers summed up - bees under stress would not be able to handle those stresses, or handle them as well when the ribsomone functions were compromised and the proteins needed to compete were not being produced.

 

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CATCH THE BUZZ - WORLD ALMOND PRODUCTION DOWN

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This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping

Celebrate UrbanBees with Bee Culture and thedailygreen.com For details, visit www.thedailygreen.com/bee-photos.


CATCH THE BUZZ

World Almond Crop Predicted to be Down. Will Prices Increase?

Find out What’s New At Mann Lake right Here

Protein feeding pays off with better bee health, better survival, better production, and better wintering.  Learn More.

 

India may produce only 1,200 tonnes of almonds in 2009-10

Almond production in India is likely to remain stagnant at 1,200 tonnes in 2009-10, while the world output is forecast to dip by 13 per cent in the same period, a recent report said.

Almond production in India for 2009-10 is pegged at 1,200 tonnes, which is the same as last year, the US Department of Agriculture said in its trade report.

Almond cultivation in the country is restricted to selected hilly areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

The USDA data showed that India's production of almonds has been stagnant at 1,200 tonnes since 2004.

The report highlighted that the world's almond output may decline by 13 per cent at 7,60,000 tonnes due to an expected smaller crop in the US, where over 80 per cent of the world's almonds are produced.

According to USDA, almond production in America is expected to fall 17 per cent to 6,12,350 tonnes in 2009-10, compared with 7,39,350 tonnes last season.

Almond production in Europe may rise marginally to 88,950 tonnes from 79,800 tonnes last year. The output in Australia is expected to increase to 30,000 tonnes from 26,000 tonnes, the report said.

 

Subscribe to Malcolm Sanford’s Apis Newsletter right here

For a comprehensive listing of beekeeping events around the country and around the globe, check out Bee Culture’s Global Beekeeping Calendar