Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and bee age impact honey bee pathophysiology.

ABSTRACT: Honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies continue to experience high annual losses that remain poorly explained. Numerous interacting factors have been linked to colony declines. Understanding the pathways linking pathophysiology with symptoms is an important step in understanding the mechanisms of disease. In this study we examined the specific pathologies associated with honey bees collected from colonies suffering from Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and compared these with bees collected from apparently healthy colonies. We identified a set of pathological physical characteristics that occurred at different rates in CCD diagnosed colonies prior to their collapse: rectum distension, Malpighian tubule iridescence, fecal matter consistency, rectal enteroliths (hard concretions), and venom sac c

SUBMITTER: vanEngelsdorp D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5513415 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature