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Mon 12 Nov, 2007 09:44 pm
Chee Chee Leung
November 13, 2007
The Age Newspaper
THE good name of Australia's bees has been restored. A virus linked to the mysterious die-off of bee colonies in the United States did not arrive through Australian exports, according to new research.
Scientists from the US Department of Agriculture who tested samples from US beekeepers found the virus was present since at least 2002 two years before Australia started exporting bees to the US.
I didn't know your bees were ever suspect!
Two months ago, a paper in the journal, "Science", linked Australian bees with the declines, after researchers found almost all the collapsed hives they examined were infected with the Israeli acute paralysis virus.
The same virus was found in a sample of apparently healthy Australian bees. The research team noted that Australian bees began arriving in the US from 2004, about the same time the massive bee deaths were first reported.
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