Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Sep 9:6:33065.
doi: 10.1038/srep33065.

Deformed wing virus can be transmitted during natural mating in honey bees and infect the queens

Esmaeil Amiri  1   2 , Marina D Meixner  3 , Per Kryger  1
Affiliations

Deformed wing virus can be transmitted during natural mating in honey bees and infect the queens

Esmaeil Amiri et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Deformed wing virus is an important contributor to honey bee colony losses. Frequently queen failure is reported as a cause for colony loss. Here we examine whether sexual transmission during multiple matings of queens is a possible way of virus infection in queens. In an environment with high prevalence of deformed wing virus, queens (n = 30) were trapped upon their return from natural mating flights. The last drone's endophallus (n = 29), if present, was removed from the mated queens for deformed wing virus quantification, leading to the detection of high-level infection in 3 endophalli. After oviposition, viral quantification revealed that seven of the 30 queens had high-level deformed wing virus infections, in all tissues, including the semen stored in the spermathecae. Two groups of either unmated queens (n = 8) with induced egg laying, or queens (n = 12) mated in isolation with drones showing comparatively low deformed wing virus infections served as control. None of the control queens exhibited high-level viral infections. Our results demonstrate that deformed wing virus infected drones are competitive to mate and able to transmit the virus along with semen, which occasionally leads to queen infections. Virus transmission to queens during mating may be common and can contribute noticeably to queen failure.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. DWV titres in the head, thorax, abdomen, ovaries and spermatheca of each queen as along with the viral titres found in sperm taken from each mated queen.
Furthermore, for each queen returning mated once or twice, the virus titres in the mating signs are recorded. * This queen was found dead and dissection of the internal organs was impossible. NS: Not Sampled, NA: Not applicable, NE: No endophallus upon return to hive.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Strassmann J. The rarity of multiple mating by females in the social Hymenoptera. Insectes Soc. 48, 1–13 (2001).
    1. Tarpy D. R. & Nielsen D. Sampling error, effective paternity, and estimating the genetic structure of honey bee colonies (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 95, 513–528 (2002).
    1. Tarpy D. R., Nielsen R. & Nielsen D. I. A scientific note on the revised estimates of effective paternity frequency in Apis. Insectes Soc. 51, 203–204 (2004).
    1. Schlüns H., Moritz R. F. A., Neumann P., Kryger P. & Koeniger G. Multiple nuptial flights, sperm transfer and the evolution of extreme polyandry in honeybee queens. Anim. Behav. 70, 125–131 (2005).
    1. Koeniger G., Koeniger N., Ellis J. & Connor L. J. Mating biology of honey bees (Apis mellifera). (Buschhausen, 2014).

Publication types

Supplementary concepts

LinkOut - more resources