Putting these thoughts out there for consideration:

The epidemiology of diseases and pests in social insects may be quite 
different from that in humans, mammals or vertebrates.  We have to be 
cautious about applying the latter models to honey bees.  The mind 
tends to drift towards personal or family experiences in the medical 
field, or to the vast amount of information in the popular news 
channels about diseases of humans and animals and plants.

In the mid 90s, I remember hearing a prediction from a chemist that our 
perception of the number of man-made compounds out there would be 
changed with the impending dramatic increased sensitivity of detection 
methods.  Something similar has occurred with molecular detection 
techniques.  We have to be cautious in the interpretation of data that 
reports frequencies of detections of a virus, bacteria, or any other 
agent in honey bees.  Many detections could be at non-infective levels 
and could have no biological consequences.

There is growing evidence that social insects have unique ways of 
coping with diseases and parasites with "social immunity". 
 Oversimplifying a bit, but they may have forfeited the effort at 
individual immunity, and the superorganism functions by eliminating 
infected "cells", either through hygienic removal, or even altruistic 
self-removal.  It makes a lot of sense to have such "techniques" in an 
environment of crowdedness where contagions can spread easily.  By the 
same token, in such an environment, it may be impossible for a 
superorganism to become absolutely contagion free, therefore the need 
for constant vigilance through social immunity.  The contagion free 
model may work in humans and vertebrates, but not so well in social 
insects.

 

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