Bee virus widespread

Press, 26 December 1985, Page 2

Bee virus widespread

A bee virus first discovered in Kashmir bees in 1977 is now known to be widespread , among New Zealand bee colonies, and is thought to have been here, undetected, for many decades. Little is known about Kashmir bee virus because the disease has no set symptoms, reports a Department of Scientific and industrial Research bee pathologist, Dr Dennis Anderson, of Mount Albert, Auckland.

The economic effects of the disease on New Zealand’s honey and. bee export industry are unknown, but Dr Anderson believes no serious effects will be felt Kashmir bee virus lives in the gut of the bee as an infection and emerges only when conditions are suitable for its development. Other infections, such as Nosema or American foulbrood, can “trigger” the infection to move from the gut into other tissues, and kill the bee.

Environmental conditions may also stimulate the infection. The virus has been found in both bumble bees and honey bees, and in larvae, pupae, and adults, including apparently healthy queen bees.

Beekeepers will probably not be aware that their bees are infected. The disease has no cure, as it is a virus, says Dr Anderson.

When, the disease was found in Asian bees in 1977 it was labelled as an “exotic” disease. In 1979 it was found in bees in Australia, and exports of queen bees from that country to Canada were stopped. When it was discovered in New Zealand it was feared that expanding bee and bee product exports to Canada would be stopped. However, bee samples imported from Canada to investigate the possibility

that the disease also occurred there proved to have the virus. It is thought that the virus also occurs in United States bees.

According to a Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries spokesman the trade in bees and bee products with Canada, worth about SIM this year, is continuing without interruption. It is believed that a Canadian official was in New Zealand arranging further imports when the discovery- of the virus was announced. The status of Kashmir bee virus can now be changed to being a worldwide bee disease instead of an exotic disease, Dr Anderson says.

Canada has a shortage of bees and it is reluctant to import stocks from its traditional source, the United States, because of concern about the increasing numbers of aggressive Africanised bees there.