Plant & Animal Genomes XVII Conference

January 10-14, 2009
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Preventing Bee Mortality With RNA Interference: Targeting Virus Infection And Colony Collapse Disorder

Jamie Ellis, JR¹ , Wayne Hunter² , Eyal Maori Ilan Sela,³ , Gal Yarden, Nitzan Paldi, Etan Glick,Eyal Ben-Chanoch⁴

¹  University of Florida, Entomology Nematology Department, Honey Bee Research & Extension Laboratory (HBREL), Gainesville, FL. USA.

²  ARS USDA, U. S. Horticultural Research Lab, Fort Pierce, FL. 34945. USA.

³  The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Faculty of Agriculture, Virus Laboratory, ISRAEL

⁴  Beeologics LLC; 11800 SW 77th Avenue, Miami, FL. 33156. USA.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) of honeybees is threatening the world’s apiculture and consequently agriculture. In the recent outbreak of CCD an estimated 30% of the 2.4 million USA’s honeybee hives were lost in 2006/07 and 36% lost in 2007/08. With certain apiaries reporting up to 90% loses and others none it seems that CCD distribution profile suggest a new infectious agent. Evidence that CCD is transmissible through the reuse of equipment from collapsed colonies and that such transmission can be eliminated by irradiation of the equipment supports this hypothesis. Recently, Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus of bees (IAPV) and Kashmir Bee Virus (KBV) were strongly correlated with CCD. Although other etiological agents were present in CCD colonies, they were also found in apparently healthy colonies. In contrast, IAPV was found in 83% of CCD colonies and almost completely absent from apparently healthy colonies. Moreover, mortality in bees injected or fed with IAPV reached 98% within days. Therefore, even if certain cases of CCD are attributable to multiple factors, and even though the "Koch’s postulate" for viral disease and CCD has not yet been unequivocally demonstrated, preventing viral infection may remove the most likely causative agent responsible for CCD. A collaborative initiative to develop RNAi based technology for controlling IAPV was launched with the objective to improve bee survival. Laboratory and field trials demonstrated that feeding IAPV specific dsRNA prior to virus inoculation, significantly improved bee to brood ratio and honey yield compared with bees inoculated with IAPV only. (Beeologics:link to my site ).