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University of Montana bee research in national spotlight – Montana Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery – Colony Collapse Disorder

It has been one of the great murder mysteries of the garden: what is killing off the honeybees?

A group of scientists led by Jerry Bromenshenk of the University of Montana in Missoula has researched bee-related applications for the military in the past – developing, for example, a way to use honeybees in detecting land mines http://maic.jmu.edu/journal/7.3/focus/bromenshenk/bromenshenk.htm .

But researchers on both sides say that colony collapse may be the first time that the defense machinery of the post-Sept. 11 Homeland Security Department and academia have teamed up to address a problem that both sides say they might never have solved on their own.

A fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem, according to a paper by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana in the online science journal PLoS One http://www.plosone.org/home.action .

By Kirk Johnson

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/science/07bees.html?_r=1&hp

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University of Montana bee research in national spotlight http://matr.net/article-41301.html

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