“…Because of the challenges in experimentally controlling the natural mating process of honey bee queens and drones, much of the evidence for venereal infection is based on experiments with artificial insemination (Yue et al, 2006; de Miranda and Fries, 2008) the detection of viral particles in the reproductive organs, tissues and secretions of drones and queens (e.g., endophallus, semen, ovaries, spermatheca). That is the case for the detection of ABPV (Yue et al, 2006;Prodělalová et al, 2019), BQCV (Prodělalová et al, 2019), SBV (Prodělalová et al, 2019), AmFV (Gauthier et al, 2015;Prodělalová et al, 2019), IAPV (Chen et al, 2014), and DWV (Fievet et al, 2006;Yue et al, 2006;de Miranda and Fries, 2008;Yañez et al, 2012a;Prodělalová et al, 2019) in semen, which first identified the potential for sexual transmission. Similarly, the occurrence of viruses in the spermatheca of mated queens such as DWV (Chen et al, 2006;de Miranda and Fries, 2008;Francis et al, 2013) and IAPV (Chen et al, 2014) suggests the potential for virus found in sperm to cause infection in the queen tissues; confirming the possibility for sexual transmission through artificial insemination (Yue et al, 2007;de Miranda and Fries, 2008).…”