Bees are important plant pollinators in agricultural and natural ecosystems. High average annual losses of honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies in some parts of the world, and regional population declines of some mining bee species (Andrena spp.), are...
Bees, both wild and domesticated ones, are hosts to a plethora of viruses, with most of them infecting a wide range of bee species and genera. Although viral discovery and research on bee viruses date back over 50 years, the last decade is marked by...
Cuba is in a unique situation in which it has a large (220,000 managed colonies) and isolated honey bee population due to a 60+ year ban on the importation of bees. Despite this, the ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor arrived in 1996, and with it c...
The combination of Deformed wing virus (DWV) and Varroa destructor is arguably one of the greatest threats currently facing western honey bees, Apis mellifera. Varroa’s association with DWV has decreased viral diversity and increased loads of DW...
Recent high annual losses of honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies, averaging 40% in the United States from 2008 to 2025, are concerning for beekeepers, growers, policy makers, and scientists. Viruses, the most abundant group of honey bee pathogens, im...
Sacbrood virus (SBV) is a common honey bee virus disease. SBV variants and strains identified in Asian honey bees, Apis cerana, have created confusion in identifications. Although the regional names indicated the expansions of the virus in new region...
RNA viruses play a significant role in the current high losses of pollinators. Although many studies have focused on the epidemiology of western honey bee (Apis mellifera) viruses at the colony level, the dynamics of virus infection within colonies r...
Verifying the inclusivity of molecular detection methods gives indications about the reliability of viral infection diagnosis because of the tendency of viral pathogens to undergo sequence variation. This study was aimed at selecting inclusive probes...
The ectoparasite Varroa destructor is the greatest biotic threat of honey bees Apis mellifera in vast regions of the world. Recently, the study of natural mite-resistant populations has gained much interest to understand the action of natural selecti...
Honey bees (Apis mellifera) play a crucial role in agriculture through their pollination activities. However, they have faced significant health challenges over the past decades that can limit colony performance and even lead to collapse. A primary c...
Deformed wing virus (DWV) is the most abundant viral pathogen of honey bees and has been associated with large-scale colony losses. DWV and other bee-associated RNA viruses are generalists capable of infecting diverse hosts. Here, we used RNAseq anal...
Metagenomics studies have accelerated the discovery of novel or divergent viruses of the honey bee. However, most of these studies predominantly focused on RNA viruses, and many suffer from the relatively low abundance of viral nucleic acids in the s...
Throughout a honey bee queen’s lifetime, she is tended to by her worker daughters, who feed and groom her. Such interactions provide possible horizontal transmission routes for pathogens from the workers to the queen, and as such a queen’...
Deformed wing virus (DWV) is one of the most prevalent honey bee viral pathogens in the world. Typical of many RNA viruses, DWV is a quasi-species, which is comprised of a large number of different variants, currently consisting of three master varia...
Deformed wing virus (DWV) in association with Varroa destructor is currently attributed to being responsible for colony collapse in the western honey bee (Apis mellifera). The appearance of deformed individuals within an infested colony has long been...
RNA viruses are often cited as a significant factor affecting the populations of both domestic honey bees and wild pollinators. To expedite the development of effective countermeasures against these viruses, a more comprehensive understanding of viru...
Insects have a highly sensitive sense of smell, allowing them to perform complex behaviors, such as foraging and peer recognition. Their sense of smell is based on the recognition of ligands and is mainly coordinated by odorant-binding proteins (OBPs...
Deformed wing virus (DWV), a major honey bee pathogen, is a generalist insect virus detected in diverse insect phyla, including numerous ant genera. Its clinical symptoms have only been reported in honey bees, bumble bees, and wasps. DWV is a quasisp...
Deformed wing virus (DWV) is one of the important pathogens of the honey bee (Apis mellifera), which consists of three master variants: types A, B, and C. Among them, DWV types A (DWV-A) and B (DWV-B) are the most prevalent variants in honey bee colo...
Environmental and agricultural pollination services by honey bees, Apis mellifera, and honey production are compromised by high levels of annual colony losses globally. The majority are associated with disease caused by deformed wing virus (DWV), a p...
The Varroa destructor mite is a devastating parasite of honey bees; however the negative effects of varroa parasitism are exacerbated by its role as an efficient vector of the honey bee pathogen, Deformed wing virus (DWV). While no direct treatment f...
Deformed wing virus (DWV) is known as one of the main viruses that affect honeybees’ health all around the world. The virus has two widespread genotypes, DWV-A and DWV-B (VDV-1), transmitted mainly by V. destructor mites. In this study, we coll...
This study aimed to determine the presence of relevant infectious and parasitic agents (IPAs) in managed honeybees from Central Italy and the Republic of Kosovo and Albania to assess the overall health status of local apiaries by determining the cont...
The strong association between Varroa destructor, deformed wing virus (DWV), and high overwintering colony losses (OCL) of honey bees is well established. Three DWV master variants (DWV-A, -B, and -C) have been described, and their role in colony mor...
Insect behavior is coordinated mainly by smell through the diverse odor-binding proteins (OBP) that allow them to identify and recognize their environment. Sensory information collected through smell is then analyzed and interpreted in the brain, all...