http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-01/asfm-ppv011714.php

Quote

A viral pathogen that typically infects plants has been found in honeybees
and could help explain their decline. Researchers working in the U.S. and
Beijing, China report their findings in *mBio*, the online open-access
journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

The routine screening of bees for frequent and rare viruses "resulted in
the serendipitous detection of Tobacco Ringspot Virus, or TRSV, and
prompted an investigation into whether this plant-infecting virus could
also cause systemic infection in the bees," says Yan Ping Chen from the
U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, an author on the study.

"The results of our study provide the first evidence that honeybees exposed
to virus-contaminated pollen can also be infected and that the infection
becomes widespread in their bodies," says lead author Ji Lian Li, at the
Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science in Beijing.

"We already know that honeybees, Apis melllifera, can transmit TRSV when
they move from flower to flower, likely spreading the virus from one plant
to another," Chen adds.

Notably, about 5% of known plant viruses are pollen-transmitted and thus
potential sources of host-jumping viruses. RNA viruses tend to be
particularly dangerous because they lack the 3'-5' proofreading function
which edits out errors in replicated genomes. As a result, viruses such as
TRSV generate a flood of variant copies with differing infective properties.

Unquote

There is more and is interesting as it couples in Varroa.Could be a game
changer in how we look at our current problems.

Bill Truesdell

Bath, Maine

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