The honey bee pollination contributes roughly $15 billion to the U.S. agricultural industry each year, but diseases like deformed wing virus (DWV) can devastate bee health.
DWV is highly responsible for honey bee colony losses.
It causes infected bees to forage prematurely, which can cause diminished spatial memory and colony failure.
Bees may be more likely to spread the virus to neighboring colonies because of their disoriented state.
To find out why DWV has this effect on bees, researchers with the Univerity of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine collaborated with the Univerity of Illinois and Washington State Univerity.
The researchers’ findings are as follows:
- the virus, which localizes and replicates in the sensory and behavioral centers of the brain, causes the bee’s brain to function as though the bee is older than it is;
- the virus is infecting glia, non-neuronal cells in the central and peripheral nervous systems that do not produce electrical impulses—not neurons.
This study is just a stepping stone and more studies are needed to better understand the viral response and its impact on bee behavior says study co-author Declan Schroeder, an associate professor of the University of Minnesota CVM.
