Honeybees may be spreading disease.

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Also another comment from this..

They also demonstrated that IAPV infected Bumblebees could infect Honeybees, and vica versa.

They also found this:

"Phylogenetic analyses support that these viruses are disseminating
freely among the pollinators via the flower pollen itself."

Pollen itself can act as a vector for these viruses.

There's more about how these viruses are associated with pollen in the paper, and it is alarming.

It's possible that these viruses are inside the pollen grain itself. Which suggests replication within plant cells.

Also finding IAPV in water. http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0007264
 
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I agree both links make for sobering reading....but I wonder do wild bees (eg bumbles) have their own viruses that can be passed the other way, and if so, then surely this isn't a recent thing, after all bees have been here for 200 million years....and so the transmission of chalk, sac brood viruses the other way might not also be a recent development, merely it has just been discovered as an occurrance in the wider hunt to solve the CCD problem ?

I wonder if, like humans, exposure to a virus can then create antibodies in the species discussed (obviously IAPV is pretty fatal), but maybe this cross contamination has been going on forever...

I wonder what the implications are for harvesting pollen for feeding back later in the season...

regards

S
 
Interesting reading, thanks for posting.

Whilst it's interesting that pollen has been identified as a vector, the idea of disease pathogens or indeed pests jumping species is not new in the world of beekeeping... look at nosema ceranae or varroa for two prime examples that came to apis mellifera from elsewhere, or indeed the bird flu / swine flu hysteria in the press.

I find the tone of the Wired article a little alarmist in that it implies that dirty honey bees are infecting clean wild bees; in the case of harvested pollen it is hardly the fault of the bees, honey or bumble, that this is taking place!
 

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