Has anyone ever see DWV virgin queens?

[TooFarGone]

I was wondering if anyone had ever seen Deformed Wing Virus affected virgin queens? Has anyone seen Verroa mite infestation of a capped queen cell? I have not seen any mention of this finding in my reading. I was wondering if the mites can survive in the royal jelly bath inside the queen cells.

Thanks

TooFarGone

[JD's Bees]

I saw one varroa mite in a Q cell I opened last year.

[JRG13]

If you think about it, it's a numbers game. Q-cells are highly attended as well, but with so few available at any given time I would assume rate of inhabitation by mites is fairly low naturally.

[deejaycee]

Royal jelly is a repellant to varroa. that's why they don't infest queen cells or tend to attach to adult queens, therefore you're not going to see typical varroa-carried viruses commonly in queens.

If you think about it, even in worker brood, the royal jelly being fed to the youngest larvae is a clear message to any passing varroa that the brood is too young to bother entering that cell. Only when the larvae are older and not being fed royal jelly is the cell infested.

[bhfury]

My pea brain says...I think it's a numbers game. The live cycle of the varroa doesn't match up to that of a queen cell.

[TooFarGone]

Deejaycee- Interesting idea about royal jelly being a varroa repellant.

JD - any idea how many queen cells you have seen that did not have varroa? Just trying to get a handle on the occurence rate.

Thanks

[sqkcrk]

I seem to recall something about viruses being specifric to the workers and not the queens or drones. AFB, not a virus, doers not effect drone larvae and pupae. The same may be true for viruses.

[BEES4U]

A virus can infect a developing queen. BQCV
http://www.science.oregonstate.edu/b...ll%20Virus.pdf

Black Queen-Cell Virus
Causative Agent: Virus
Range: North America, Great Britain & Australia
Life cycle:
• Virus primarily attacks developing queens and in rare instances will affect developing
workers
• Infected pupae die, darken, and the walls of the cell develop black patches.

[Oldtimer]

I have had virgins hatch in my incubator that have DWV or at least what looks exactly like it, although the queens looked totally healthy other than the wings. Wish I'd taken a pic. Now I only use cell raisers with a pretty low mite population, just in case.

I realised also that this could have been happening in my operation totally unnoticed. I'll put cells in the nucs then they don't get looked at again for 3 weeks. If any virgins had DWV they would be long gone, I would just think it failed to mate.

[JD's Bees]

I just had some extra cells, maybe about 10, so I was opening them up to see how the queens looked. Only saw the one mite.
As Oldtimer said, the cells get placed into nucs and we are not there to see what else emerges with the queen. Without ripping open cells it would be hard to know how often they may have mites.

[sqkcrk]

A virus can infect a developing queen. BQCV
http://www.science.oregonstate.edu/b...ll%20Virus.pdf

Black Queen-Cell Virus
Causative Agent: Virus
Range: North America, Great Britain & Australia
Life cycle:
• Virus primarily attacks developing queens and in rare instances will affect developing
workers
• Infected pupae die, darken, and the walls of the cell develop black patches.

Yup, forgot about those. Should have looked it up.That's what is so great about our collective knowledge. Self correcting. Thanks Ernie.

[BeeGhost]

I made a couple nucs up late in the summer of 2011, my first year with bees, and let them raise their own queens. I went out to check on them a couple weeks later and seen a cluster of bees on the ground so I sifted through them to see what was up and sure enough there was a virgin queen, her wings all deformed. That is the only one I have seen though in my limited experience with virgin queens, most all have been nervous gals until they started to lay!!!

Been searching threads on queen rearing and cant wait till next month to start grafting and experimenting with queen rearing!!

[Michael Bush]

Most queens that have crumpled wings are caused by rough handling of the queen cell and the wing buds get damages.

[AstroBee]

I've never seen DWV on queens, but have seen varroa on developing queens. Last year I broke open a queen cell that didn't emerge to find a dead queen with a single mite attached.

[papar]

I thought I had DWV with queens I raised from cells- I later found out that what I thought was DWV was actually cell damage( the cells were handled a few times before being planted)