Abstract

Honey bees are under pressure due to abnormal high colony death rates, especially during the winter. The infestation by the Varroa destructor mite and the viruses that this ectoparasite transmits are generally considered as the bees’ most important biological threats. Almost all efforts to remedy this dual infection have so far focused on the control of the Varroa mite alone and not on the viruses it transmits. In the present study, the sanitary control of breeding queens was conducted on eggs taken from drone brood for 4 consecutive years (2015–2018). The screening was performed on the sideline of an ongoing breeding program, which allowed us to estimate the heritabilities of the virus status of the eggs. We used the term ‘suppressed in ovo virus infection’ (SOV) for this novel trait and found moderate heritabilities for the presence of several viruses simultaneously and for the presence of single viral species. Colonies that expressed the SOV trait seemed to be more resilient to virus infections as a whole with fewer and less severe Deformed wing virus infections in most developmental stages, especially in the male caste. The implementation of this novel trait into breeding programs is recommended.

Highlights

  • Honey bees are under pressure due to abnormal high colony death rates, especially during the winter

  • The samples were analyzed for the presence of Deformed wing virus (DWV), Acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV), Black queen cell virus (BQCV) and Sacbrood virus (SBV) and were scored 0 or 1 (0 = absence; 1 = presence) for each of the viruses and for total virus status (TVS)

  • The present study suggests for the first time that the honey bee’s potential to control virus infections is heritable

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Summary

Introduction

Honey bees are under pressure due to abnormal high colony death rates, especially during the winter. The sanitary control of breeding queens was conducted on eggs taken from drone brood for 4 consecutive years (2015–2018). Colonies that expressed the SOV trait seemed to be more resilient to virus infections as a whole with fewer and less severe Deformed wing virus infections in most developmental stages, especially in the male caste The implementation of this novel trait into breeding programs is recommended. The Varroa mite and DWV interact in many different ways, resulting in an increase in DWV ­virulence[6,7] and colony ­mortality[8,9,10,11,12] These effects are partially due to the mutualistic symbiotic relationship between both, in which the mite provides transmission of the virus when it feeds on the bee, whereas the virus undermines the immunity of the honey bee by interfering with NF-κB signaling, possibly facilitating the mite’s trophic a­ ctivity[13]. Drone brood eggs were our target samples as they are unfertilized and carry only the alleles of the breeding queen

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