The fact that viruses use perfidious reproductive strategies is actually old hat in the days of Corona. The tactics that researchers are now reporting in the magazine “PNAS” are particularly clever: honeybees infected with the so-called IAP virus are twice as likely to be admitted to other beehives as healthy fellows. This is probably due to the fact that the virus changes the smell and perhaps even the behavior of the bees in such a way that they are more accepted by foreign colonies. In the new colony, the virus can then spread to other bees and spread from hive to hive.
The “Israeli acute paralysis virus”, abbreviated IAPV (in German: Israeli acute bee paralysis virus) triggers a disease fatal for the bees and can completely wipe out bee colonies. Earlier studies have shown that honey bees infected with IAPV are more likely to get lost when they return from foraging than healthy peers. Especially in commercial beekeeping farms, where the beehives are stacked much more densely than in the wild, it often happens that the virus is carried from an infected bee to another colony. But it was still unclear why the bees get in there at all, as there is a bouncer in the form of a worker bee at the entrance to the hive. This carries out an admission check and actually turns away unwanted visitors.
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