A paper was released today in Science that suggests that IAPV, or Israeli acute paralysis virus of bees, is strongly correlated with CCD, or colony collapse disorder. This received wide coverage earlier this year as “disappearing bees.”
A Metagenomic Survey of Microbes in Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder.
“The observation that irradiated combs from affected colonies can be repopulated with naive bees suggests that infection may contribute to CCD….One organism, Israeli acute paralysis virus of bees (IAPV), was strongly correlated with CCD.”
A more lay-person friendly version of the research may be found here:
“If you identify IAPV in a colony, the probability is over 96% that this is going to come from a CCD hive,” ….The virus was found in only a single sample that was not identified as having CCD.
This is the important bit from that news article:
“The researchers stress that this doesn’t prove that IAPV is causing CCD; it is possible that the virus is infecting bees while they are in a vulnerable state. But they have found a good suspect, the researchers say. “The real test will be introducing the virus to healthy bees,” says Lipkin.
“I think that multiple factors are involved in CCD,” adds co-author Jeffery Pettis of the USDA Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland.
Edited to add: BTW, this is the first piece of research to emerge from the Bee Working Group that formed earlier this year, and drew up strategic plans to approach the problem. See what happens when you approach things scientifically? 
