All species of bumblebee and honeybee have associated diseases and parasites that impact on the health of populations. Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are those that pose a risk to human welfare (directly or indirectly) that affect ecosystem service production such as pollination of flowers or health of livestock. But what are these diseases and what are the factors that exacerbate them?
One commonly cited cause for colony collapse disorder (CCD) of the american honeybee (Apis mellifera) is the mite Varroa destructor. Varroa carries and transfers the viruses deformed wing virus (DWV) and acute bee paralysis virus (both implicated in CCD). Affliction with varroa mite also tends to weaken the immune system of honeybees. ‘Hygienic’ colonies of honeybees are able to remove the mites from brood cells and the workers groom themselves to remove the mite and disrupt it’s life cycle- this is a form of ‘resistance’ to the mite.
Other common parasites of honeybees include acarine tracheal mites, nosema spp (fungus that infest intestinal tracts), small hive beetle, wax moths and tropilaelaps (mites). Bacterial diseases include american foulbrood and european foulbrood and fungal diseases include chalkbrood and stonebrood. Honeybees are also susceptible to dysentery (inability to void faeces in flight) and viruses such as chronic and acute paralysis virus, kashmir bee virus, black queen cell virus, deformed wing virus and cloudy wing virus.
Researchers have found that two of these honeybee diseases (DWV and Nosema cerenae) are capable of infecting adult bumblebees. Further field work found that 11% of bumblebees were infected with DWV and 9% with N. cerenae, compared with honeybee infection rates of 35% and 7% respectively. The most likely explanation for the disease incidence in bumblebees is infection by honeybees, but bee-keepers can reduce the spread of disease by regular brood comb changes. It is thought that ecological traits of these pollinating insects (e.g. overlapping geographic ranges, ecological niches and behaviours) promotes cross-species transmission of RNA viruses. Social behaviour and phylogenetic relatedness of social pollinators is thought to further facilitate transmission within and between hosts.
More recent evidence has suggested that commercial colonies bred for crop pollination and honey production can carry diseases (parasite infections and over 20 viruses) and be a threat to native species. Researchers found that 77% of imported bumblebee hives were contaminated with up to 5 different parasites. There is an urgent need for further research into the health of wild and imported bees and improvement in monitoring and management practices for honeybee and bumblebee colonies
Fürst, M. A., McMahon, D. P., Osborne, J. L., Paxton, R. J., & Brown, M. J. F. (2014). Disease associations between honeybees and bumblebees as a threat to wild pollinators. Nature, 506(7488), 364-366.
Manley, R., Boots, M., & Wilfert, L. (2015). Emerging viral disease risk to pollinating insects: ecological, evolutionary and anthropogenic factors. Journal of Applied Ecology.
Pests and Pollinators 