Cox-Foster and her colleagues report online December 22 in PLoS ONE.
Eleven species of wild pollinators in the United States have turned up carrying some of the viruses known to menace domestic honeybees, possibly picked up via flower pollen.
Most of these native pollinators haven’t been recorded with honeybee viruses before
Diana Cox-Foster of Penn State University in University Park.
Cox-Foster and her colleagues report online December 22 in PLoS ONE.
Cox-Foster and her colleagues report
Gone are any hopes that viral diseases in honeybees will stay in honeybees,
“Movement of any managed pollinator may introduce viruses.”
“We recognize that those viruses likely pose a major threat to wild bumblebees,” says Sarina Jepsen of the Xerces Society, an invertebrate conservation group in Portland, Ore.
“Knowing that viruses are found in and can be transmitted from pollen is an important finding,” says Flenniken.
This raises concerns about possible virus transmission through the 200 tons of honeybee-collected pollen used to feed bumblebees in bee-raising operations worldwide, Cox-Foster says.
