Honey bees often encounter multiple stressors in the environment, namely pesticides and pathogens. However, there is still a knowledge gap in understanding how these stressors interact, especially sequentially. For example, we know almost nothing about how bees respond to a secondary stressor, such as pesticides, after recovering from a pathogen infection. In this study, we observed the effects of thiacloprid exposure in worker honey bees that recovered from sublethal infection with Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV). The worker bees were injected with IAPV, allowed to recover from the infection, and then exposed to a thiacloprid-contaminated food source. They were then tracked for survival and analyzed for levels of thiacloprid metabolites. We expected to see a higher mortality rate and reduced metabolite residues in IAPV-recovered bees due to the associated cost of fighting viral infections. This work will help shed light on the long-term ramifications of sublethal pathogen infections.

Thiacloprid detoxification capabilities of virus infection-recovered honey bees

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