Prevalence of honeybee viruses in Apis mellifera in Gifu prefecture of Japan

Viral infection damages honeybee colony health. Viruses can be carried by queen bees and apicultural production materials when imported from foreign countries. We investigated seven honeybee viruses in worker bees (Apis mellifera) from 26 healthy apiaries in Gifu, Japan between 2018 and 2019. Black queen cell virus (BQCV) was detected in 23 (88.5%) of the apiaries, followed by Israeli acute paralysis virus (42.3%), deformed wing virus (DWV) (38.5%), and sacbrood virus (3.8%). In phylogenetic analysis, BQCV and DWV in Gifu were related to those in China and South Korea. Additionally, a high prevalence of BQCV was observed among worker bees in BQCV-positive colonies. Therefore, BQCV horizontal transmission among worker bees may contribute to the high prevalence of BQCV in Gifu.