'Something doesn't smell right: Virus infections and queen supersedure' with Dr. Alison Mcafee hosted by the CBKA

About our speaker
Alison grew up homeschooled on East Cracroft Island, a remote location near Knight Inlet on British Columbia's mid-coast. She has now been researching honey bees for twelve years, studying everything from hygienic behaviour to queen quality to whether western red cedar hive boxes are bad for bees (they aren't). She obtained her PhD in genome science and technology from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and went on to become one of 15 global winners of the L'Oreal-UNESCO International Rising Talents award. Alison is now a research associate at UBC and studies queen overwintering strategies, pheromone biology, and drone heat tolerance. On top of academic papers, she has published magazine articles in The Conversation, Scientific American and American Bee Journal when she isn't trekking in the wilderness.

About the talk
Much of the damage caused by varroa mites is a consequence of the virus infections they potentiate. Are queens susceptible to virus infections too, and what happens when if she becomes sick? We surveyed over a hundred queens and found that those reported as "poor quality" by beekeepers had higher levels of some viruses and smaller ovaries than their "healthy" counterparts. Join me down our research rabbit hole, where a series of experiments revealed that queen virus infections disrupt egg laying and pheromone production, which can lead to premature supersedure.