Deformed Wing Virus

The Drone with Deformed Wing Virus which appeared in one of Silvia’s colonies some weeks ago had a drone laying queen which she destroyed, this virus does not appear on a regular basis and is very is rarely ever seen. I have only found it once in one of my colonies and that was quite some time ago.

I would suggest that this incident was caused by stress as the un-fertilized egg was deposited in a worker cell thus its growth was very restricted, also if there was just the one drone it shows that the virus is at an extremely low level, thus I would suggest it posed no risk to the other bees there abouts. We are very fortunate in that we do not have varroa which causes by transmitting this and other viruses that before varroa came along were quite benign and the bees manage to control them naturally.  This goes to show how we must be extra vigilant about the importations of bees or equipment to our beautiful Island as disease is hovering not too far away from us.

Harry Owens BEM

Bee Inspector