Honey bees have been disappearing for mysterious reasons in recent years.
LONDON — Parasitic mites have turbo-charged the spread of a virus responsible for a rise in honey bee deaths around the world, scientists said on Thursday.
Bee populations have been falling rapidly in many countries, fuelled by a
phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder. Its cause is unclear but the
Varroa mite is a prime suspect, since it spreads viruses while feeding on
hemolymph, or bee’s “blood.”
To clarify the link between mites and
viruses, a team led by Stephen Martin of Britain’s University of Sheffield
studied the impact of Varroa in Hawaii, which the mites have only recently
invaded.
They found the arrival of Varroa increased the prevalence of
a single type of virus, deformed wing virus (DWV), in honey bees from around
10 percent to 100 percent.
At the same time the amount of DWV virus
in the bees’ bodies rocketed by a millionfold and there was a huge reduction
in virus diversity, with a single strain of DWV crowding out others.
“It is that strain that is now dominant around the world and seems to be
killing bees,” Martin said in a telephone interview. “My money would be on
this virus as being key.”
Varroa mite
Other factors — including fungi, pesticides and decreased plant diversity
— are thought to play a role in colony collapse, but Ian Jones of the
University of Reading said the latest findings pointed to the virus and mite
combination as being the main culprit.
“This data provides clear
evidence that, of all the suggested mechanisms of honey bee loss, virus
infection brought in by mite infestation is a major player in the decline,”
he said.
Jones, who was not involved the research, said the findings
published in the journal Science reinforced the need for beekeepers to
control Varroa infestation in colonies.
The threat to bee populations
extends across much of Europe and the United States to Asia, South America
and the Middle East, experts say.
Bees are important pollinators of
flowering plants, including many fruit and vegetable crops. A 2011 United
Nations report estimated that bees and other pollinators such as
butterflies, beetles or birds do work worth €153-billion ($191-billion) a
year for the human economy.
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