By Susan Milius
A little-known virus has been tagged as a suspect, or maybe just an opportunistic marker of disease, in the recent unexplained disappearances of honeybees.
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During the past year, an estimated 23 percent of U.S. beekeeping operations saw worker bees vanish over the course of a few weeks for no obvious reason, a phenomenon dubbed colony-collapse disorder (SN: 7/28/07, p. 56).