BEES

It looks like the famously cryptic source of the bee problem (AKA Colony Collapse Disorder) that has been in the news off and on the past six months may have been identified in a new paper in Nature.

Heres the abstract:

In colony collapse disorder (CCD), honey bee colonies inexplicably lose their workers. CCD has resulted in a loss of 50 to 90% of colonies in beekeeping operations across the United States. The observation that irradiated combs from affected colonies can be repopulated with naive bees suggests that infection may contribute to CCD. We used an unbiased metagenomic approach to survey microflora in CCD hives, normal hives, and imported royal jelly. Candidate pathogens were screened for significance of association with CCD by examination of samples collected from several sites over a period of 3 years. One organism, Israeli acute paralysis virus of bees (IAPV), was strongly correlated with CCD.

Whole paper here. Slightly less technical bee related material can be found here.