Then, in order to look for possible impact of viral infection on ovary function, we determined by RT-qPCR the amounts of DWV and VDV-1 genomic RNA as well as the relative mRNA expression of two genes relevant to queen ovary health and function (vitellogenin and the vitellogenin receptor [26]), using β-actin as a ‘neutral’ internal reference gene for data normalization [27], and compared the relative expression in the ovaries with that for the corresponding abdomens. This evidence concerns the gene ACTB and viral infectious disease.