Prevalence of viruses in honey bee (Apis mellifera) pupae triggers in Varroa Sensitive Hygiene behavior in adult honey bees

Sammanfattning

Honey bees are one of the most important parts of our ecosystems, especially for pollination. One of the biggest threats to honey bee colonies is the parasite Varroa Destructor. It does not only feed on and weaken the bees, but is also a vector for up to 18 different viruses. In Europe, untreated colonies with parasites carrying viruses have led to a decrease of honey bees. Because of this, honey bees have developed a system called “Varroa Sensitive Hygiene”. This genetic behavior allows honey bees to recognize infested pupae and remove them, preventing further spread in the colonies. The aim of this study was to quantify viruses in pupae that had not been removed from the colonies using RT-qPCR, to get a better understanding of this behavior. There were two groups of pupae in this project, one where the honey bees had full access to remove infected pupae and the other had a screen prevented the honey bees from removing pupae. The results showed unexpected infections in pupae, according to injected viruses and controls. Looking at infections after injections, it did not show a significant difference between the two groups of pupae. Overall, there were a lot of non-targeted control groups and viruses that were detected in the assays. This could be a result of bad plasmids injections, wrong injections, and mutations in the viruses. In conclusion, the method should be tried again with some alterations, to find the reason behind the deviant results.