Beekeeping has yet to reach its full potential in terms of productivity in Turkey where it has a relatively large role in the economy. Poor colony health is suspected to be the reason for this, but comprehensive disease monitoring programs are lacking to support this notion. We sampled a total of 115 colonies across five different apiaries throughout the Marmara region of Turkey and screened for all of the major bee pathogens using PCR and RNA-seq methods. We found that Varroa mites are more prevalent in comparison to Nosema infections. The pathogens ABPV, DWV, KV, and VDV1 are near 100% prevalent and are the most abundant across all locations, which are known to be vectored by the Varroa mite. We therefore suspect that controlling Varroa mites will be key for improving bee health in Turkey moving forward. We also documented significant interactions between DWV, KV, and VDV1, which may explain how the more virulent strain of the virus becomes abundant. ABPV had a positive interaction with VDV1, thereby possibly facilitating this more virulent viral strain, but a negative interaction with Nosema ceranae. Therefore, these complex pathogen interactions should be taken into consideration in the future to improve bee health.

Termites are eusocial insects that live in organized colonies consisting of reproductives, workers, and soldiers. Soldiers are specialized for defense but are expensive to maintain, as they are incapable of husbandry and must be fed and groomed by workers. The soldiers of several species influence foraging behavior by acting as scouts that initiate foraging or by mediating worker behavioral plasticity during food exploration. These behaviors imply that soldiers may play a keystone role in termite colony function, apart from defense. Subterranean termite workers tunnel through soil in search of food while accompanied by varying proportions of soldiers, depending on the species and colony conditions. Previous studies have shown that soldiers accelerate worker exploratory tunneling behavior in two Reticulitermes species, the colonies of which contain fewer than 2% soldiers. This effect, however, is unknown in other subterranean species with different soldier proportions. In this study, we examined the influence of soldiers on exploratory foraging behavior in the Formosan subterranean termite, Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki, which is an economically devastating invasive species that maintains a relatively high soldier proportion (about 10%). When 100 foraging workers were grouped with 0, 2, 10, or 30 soldiers in two-dimensional foraging arenas, we found no significant effect of soldiers on the tunnel length, branch pattern, food source interception, or food collected within 96 h. These results suggest that C. formosanus colonies maintain food exploration efficiency regardless of soldier proportion variation.