Systemic Spread and Propagation of a Plant-Pathogenic Virus in European Honeybees, Apis mellifera

Li, Ji Lian; Cornman, R. Scott; Evans, Jay D.; Pettis, Jeffery S.; Zhao, Yan; Murphy, Charles; Peng, Wen Jun; Wu, Jie; Hamilton, Michele; Boncristiani, Humberto F.; Zhou, Liang; Hammond, John; Chen, Yan Ping

Localization of TRSV in the ectoparasitic Varroa mite of honeybees. In situ hybridization showed that TRSV could also be detected in the ectoparasitic mite, V. destructor, collected from the same TRSV-infected bee colonies. Sections hybridized with a digoxigenin (DIG)-labeled TRSV RNA probe had strong staining within the storage organs of the mite, the upper and lower gastric ceca (Fig. 6A ), although histopathological signs were not evident in these areas. No positive signal of TRSV was observed in other mite tissues, and no signal was observed with the negative-control probe (Fig. 6B) .