When a virus infects a cell inside a living organism, it quickly moves to hijack its new host. Once commandeered, the cell will become a helpless pawn in the virus' nefarious mission to replicate and spread throughout the body. That's why the cell quickly takes a drastic move: it commits suicide. Rather than linger on as a puppet for the invading virus, the cell disintegrates in a process called apoptosis, sacrificing itself for the sake of the whole organism. According to new research, the Eastern honey bee, Apis cerana, does almost exactly the same thing. Study shows that the Eastern honey bee's resistance to V. destructor seems to be fueled by what the researchers have dubbed "social apoptosis." Rather than struggle to survive when infested with mites, worker larvae of the Eastern honey bee die much more easily, preventing the mites' spread. The researchers turned up the finding after infesting the larvae of five colonies of Eastern honey bees and six colonies of Western honey bees with V. destructor. While Western honey bee larvae developed normally, Eastern honey bee larvae developed much more slowly, and often didn't develop at all. http://www.realclearscience.com/jou...ide_to_save_colony_from_parasites_109664.html Paper: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep27210
