Black queen cell virus and drifting of honey bee workers ( Apis mellifera )

Social insects may accidentally drift into foreign nests due to orientation errors. Even though pathogens have beenreported to promote drifting, no data currently exist about the potential impact of titers of the widespread black queencell virus (BQCV) on the orientation abilities of honey bee workers,Apis mellifera. Here, we investigated titers ofBQCV in naturally infected drifted and non-drifted workers. The data show significantly higher virus titers in the driftedworkers (Wilcoxon rank sum test,P<0.01). Our results suggest that high BQCV loads may compromise honey beeorientation, possibly by affecting learning performance similar to other viruses. If future work demonstrates that thecorrelation found here represents a causal relationship between higher viral titers and drifting, this will be the first iden-tification of clinical symptoms of BQCV in adult honey bee hosts