Abstract
Honey bee health is mainly affected by Varroa destructor, viruses, Nosema spp., pesticide residues and poor nutrition. Interactions between these proposed factors may be responsible for the colony losses reported worldwide in recent years. In the present study, the effects of a honey bee virus, Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV), on the foraging behaviors and homing ability of European honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) were investigated based on proboscis extension response (PER) assays and radio frequency identification (RFID) systems. The pollen forager honey bees originated from colonies that had no detectable level of honey bee viruses and were manually inoculated with IAPV to induce the viral infection. The results showed that IAPV-inoculated honey bees were more responsive to low sucrose solutions compared to that of non-infected foragers. After two days of infection, around 107 copies of IAPV were detected in the heads of these honey bees. The homing ability of IAPV-infected foragers was depressed significantly in comparison to the homing ability of uninfected foragers. The data provided evidence that IAPV infection in the heads may enable the virus to disorder foraging roles of honey bees and to interfere with brain functions that are responsible for learning, navigation, and orientation in the honey bees, thus, making honey bees have a lower response threshold to sucrose and lose their way back to the hive.
Highlights
Honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) play a vital role in global food production and economy [1]
Honey bee colonies used in the study were screened by RT-PCR according to the methods described by the previous studies [8,35] for the presence of seven common honey bee viruses including Acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV) [36], Black queen cell virus (BQCV) [37], Chronic bee paralysis virus (CBPV) [38], Deformed wing virus (DWV) [39], Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) [6], Kashmir bee virus (KBV) [40] and Sacbrood virus (SBV) [41]
There was no difference regarding sucrose responsiveness between honey bees infected with 1 ul of IAPV (1: 200 dilution) containing approximately 110 copies of IAPV and honey bees injected with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) at days 0 and 1 after injection (Figure 2C)
Summary
Honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) play a vital role in global food production and economy [1]. Honey bee colony losses in recent years have had a devastating effect on the agricultural industry and ecosystems that rely on honey bees for pollination. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a poorly understood phenomenon in which workers abruptly disappear and do not return to the hive but leave behind live queen and brood in the colony. This occurred during the winter of 2006-2007 in the US and colony losses reported in recent years in other parts of the world [2,3], poses a particular threat to apiculture and agriculture worldwide. IAPV was detected in 86% of CCD-affected colonies but in less than 5%
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