Viruses
There is no bottle for a virus. Keep the mites down.
Florida routinely detects 14 honey bee viruses. Eight of those threaten the industry. Common Viruses of Florida Honey Bees is the UF/IFAS paper. Ellis, Fulton, and Epperson. This page is that paper. There is no chemical for a virus in a living colony. Varroa is the vector job.
Unfortunately, no chemical applications are available for the direct treatment of viral diseases of honey bees.
You cannot see the particle
Viruses are invisible to the naked eye. Most honey bee viruses are RNA viruses. A bee can carry more than one without looking sick. A colony can carry more. Individual bees mount a cellular response. Colonies fever the brood comb, cull infected brood, or send sick adults out. Stress punches through that. High mite loads, poor forage, and pesticide exposure are the stressors this paper names.
Diagnosis is a lab. ELISA or reverse-transcriptase PCR. Send the sample. ApiaryInspectors.org lists North American labs. A porch guess between sacbrood and American foulbrood is how you burn the wrong box. AFB dead brood sticks to the cell. Sacbrood dead brood does not.
Mites first. Then forage. Then tools.
Varroa feeds, reproduces, and vectors several of these viruses. Keep mite loads down with the IPM already on the Varroa page. An alcohol wash this month. The virus list waits on that number. Get this. Polyfloral pollen supports a colony under viral pressure. Hygienic stock culls sick brood. Manage European foulbrood and small hive beetles so the box is not fighting three jobs. Sterilize hive tools. Limit comb moving between yards. Quarantine a wrecked colony. Minimize spray. A hive tool you can scorch or bleach after a suspect frame.Get this. pesticides is the spray paper.
Acute bee paralysis, Kashmir, and Israeli acute paralysis travel together as a complex. Hair loss and a greasy look on adults. High mite loads turn a quiet infection into a die-off. Chronic bee paralysis has two faces: trembling bloated bees that cannot fly, or shiny hairless bees that fly for a few days then stop. Lake Sinai virus often shows no signs. High loads still track with weak populations. It is not clearly a Varroa virus.
Is there a treatment bottle?
No. Common Viruses of Florida Honey Bees: no chemical for viral disease. Sample mites. Feed if the box is light. Send a lab sample if the brood pattern looks like AFB.
Is a crumpled wing enough?
It is the obvious DWV sign. The paper says about 1 percent of infected bees show it. Most DWV is a titer, not a wing.
Sources
- Common Viruses of Florida Honey Bees. Ellis, Fulton, and Epperson. Fourteen viruses. No chemical.
- Varroa destructor. The vector this virus paper keeps naming.
- FDACS Division of Plant Industry. Apiary inspector. Diagnostics. The paper ends there.