UM plays role in understanding Colony Collapse Disorder

Mass honeybee deaths across the nation may be threatening more than just the loss of honey for your herbal tea.
Over the last two decades, bee colonies have diminished from 8 million to 2.6 million, due to a variety of factors stressing the hives, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Most recently, a new disorder called Colony Collapse Disorder has affected an estimated 20 to 35 percent of bee colonies, according to data from the National Agricultural Statistical Service. If CCD affects a hive, it can leave beekeepers with a nearly empty hive in as little as a few days.
Bee colony pollination affects about one-third of all food consumed in the United States, according to the Department of Agriculture’s Web site, so CCD could theoretically put the food supply in jeopardy. 

Local company Bee Alert Technology Inc. has had a recent breakthrough in determining how to more effectively screen for the viruses that may be causing CCD.
“We think we’re closing in,” said Colin Henderson, vice president of Bee Alert and a UM faculty member. “We have a team of some of the leading scientists in the nation, and we are really fortunate to have a lot of student participants, especially undergrads.”
The common symptom of CCD is a hive that is missing most of its bees, although no dead bees can be found in or around the hive.
Using new technology created by the U.S. Army, researchers have been able to screen for thousands of small components within proteins called peptides that indicate viruses, instead of only testing for a handful of virus indicators.
This led to Bee Alert’s recent discovery of the Varroa Destructor Virus 1 in the United States. Before this screening, it was a virus only present in some bees within Europe.
While the virus is not believed to cause CCD, the new technology the company employed to find the virus is a revolutionary approach to searching for future answers about CCD.
“I’m looking forward to seeing new applications of this technology,” said senior Stacy Potter, who works with Bee Alert in collecting samples.Bee samples from the East Coast were sent to the U.S. Army-backed lab Edgewood Chemical and Biological Center in Maryland, where the Varroa Destructor Virus 1 was identified using an advanced protein-studying device. This device screened the sample, taken by leading bee expert Jerry Bromenshenk and his team at Bee Alert, for thousands of peptide combinations eventually linking it to the virus.
Since June 2008, Edgewood’s companion technology site, BVS Inc., has been in Missoula next door to Bee Alert.
David Wick, who calls himself “the virus man,” runs the lab and is the first person to test samples collected by Bee Alert. The machine he uses is an integrated virus detection system and can turn up a much broader range of results within hours instead of days. Bromenshenk and Bee Alert now have one of the most thorough and efficient pieces of technology to test their samples only a stone’s throw from their office.
“There are only about a dozen of these instruments in the world,” Wick said about the virus detection system, “and only two of them are looking for honeybee viruses using this technology.”
Wick’s lab and the Edgewood lab in Maryland often work together, combining two different but equally powerful machines that cover a broad range of viral data.
“They see the peptides; I see the whole intact virus,” Wick said. “We have a bigger, broader look. It makes a difference.”
The combination of technology, along with world renowned researchers, has put Missoula on the map as one of the world’s leading cities for this research.
“We’ve found a whole new approach to answering the question,” Henderson said, adding that the results found with the new technology may contradict previous studies conducted on possible causes of CCD.
“That’s ideally how science works,” Henderson said. “That’s what we teach you in the classroom.”
He said his aim is to use the new data to help make a difference in the livelihoods of local beekeepers who are dealing with these new viruses and CCD in their hives.
carmen.george@umontana.edu