Dark bee and viruses.

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Antipodes

Queen Bee
Joined
Mar 24, 2019
Messages
2,949
Reaction score
1,932
Location
lutruwita
Hive Type
Langstroth
NSW DPI Bee Biosecurity Officers visited New Zealand where varroa mites are established and I was looking at the video below. At around the 1:20 minute to 1:35 minute mark a couple of dark bees appear. One of the biosecurity officers can be heard saying that the dark bee is "a virus affected bee".
I presume that there are a number of viruses that can cause bees to be dark and hairless like that and I'm after some views and advice please about which ones and the most likely suspects.

 
Chronic bee paralysis virus springs to mind but old bees lose their hair and look shiny too.
Thanks Dani.
So with those couple of bees in the video, could you say one way or the other with any certainty? I think the one he sees has almost no apparent "colour" segmentation in the abdomen.
 
I’m no expert but I wouldn’t worry about two bees but obviously keep an eye open. They say there are two types of CBPV. Shaking ataxic bees. Shiny black bees. I think most infections are both. It’s easy enough to spot shaking bees on the top bars that often don’t go down when you smoke them.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top