Chronic bee paralysis virus (CBPV) commonly affects adult Apis mellifera honey bees and causes a chronic paralysis that can easily spread to other members of a colony. Bees infected with CBPV begin to show symptoms after 5 days and die a few days after.[1] Chronic bee paralysis virus infection is a factor that can contribute to or cause the sudden collapse of honeybee colonies.[2] Since honeybees serve a vital role in ecological resilience, it is important to understand factors and diseases that threaten them.
Although CBPV infects mainly adult bees, the virus can also infect bees in earlier developmental stages, though developing bees typically have significantly lower viral loads compared to their adult counterparts. Death as a result of CBPV infection in developing bees or brood losses due to viral infection are low or nonexistent.[3]
Bees that have been infected with CBPV may harbor millions of viral particles, with half of them concentrated in the head region of the infected honey bee. As a result, the virus has neurotropic activity, allowing the virus to cause nervous system damage in infected honey bees. Specifically, research has identified that viral particles concentrate primarily in two centers of the brain to replicate after infecting the host. The first replication center is the mushroom bodies, which play a role in sensory processing, memory, learning, and motor control, and the second replication center the central body, the center of the insect brain that primarily control locomotion, behavior, bodily orientation, and arousal.[3][4]