22 January, 2026
A new study led by doctoral student Idan Kanonitch and supervised by Prof. Yael Mandlik of the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, published in Ecological Applications, found that the presence of viruses in wild bees is not random, but is related to the flower species in the bees’ environment.
A field survey of wild bees of the genus Andrena identified the presence of viruses familiar from honey bees, and found that the composition of the flower species in the area helps explain where and when these viruses are detected.