Determination of Mixed Virus Infection in Honey Bees from Erzurum, Türkiye

Abstract

Honey bees are the most important pollinators of agricultural products and provide pollination. Especially the worker bees, which make up the majority of the honey bee population, produce products with high economic value such as honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, bee venom, and beeswax. Mass deaths are observed in honey bees grown in Erzurum province, where beekeeping activities are carried out intensively in the Eastern Anatolia region of Türkiye. Epidemic diseases seen in honey bees in Erzurum have a very negative effect on the development and progress of beekeeping activities. Most of the diseases that cause epidemics in bees and cause sudden death and colony loss are of viral origin. In this study, viral pathogens that cause death in honey bees in Erzurum province were investigated and it was determined that two honeybee viruses, the black queen cell virus (BQCV), and the deformed wing virus, caused intense epidemics. In addition, phylogenetic analyzes revealed that all BQCV isolates found in this study clustered quite far from BQCV isolates previously isolated from Turkiye, while DWV isolates clustered close to Hakkari and Lithuania isolates.