The physicochemical properties, composition and antimicrobial activity of cinnamon essential oil (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) were studied. The bioactivity of this essential oil against Paenibacillus larvae was analyzed by means of a combination of in vitro techniques, such as the tube dilution method and bioautography, a method employed to localize antibacterial activity on a chromatogram. Cinnamal...

The spore-forming bacterium Paenibacillus larvae causes a severe and highly infective bee disease, American foulbrood (AFB). Despite the large economic losses induced by AFB, the virulence factors produced by P. larvae are as yet unknown. To identify such virulence factors, we experimentally infected young, susceptible larvae of the honeybee, Apis mellifera carnica, with different P. larvae iso...

Disclosing interactions between pesticides and bee infections is of most interest to understand challenges that pollinators are facing and to which extent bee health is compromised. Here, we address the individual and combined effect that three different pesticides (dimethoate, clothianidin and fluvalinate) and an American foulbrood (AFB) infection have on mortality and the cellular immune resp...

Paenibacillus larvae is a highly contagious and often lethal widely distributed pathogen of honeybees, Apis mellifera but has not been reported in eastern Africa to date. We investigated the presence of P. larvae in the eastern and western highland agro-ecological zones of Uganda by collecting brood and honey samples from 67 honeybee colonies in two sampling occasions and cultivated them for P....

Paenibacillus larvae is the causative agent of the important honey bee larval disease American Foulbrood (AFB). This pathogen has been treated in bee colonies by a single registered antibiotic, oxytetracycline (OTC), for fifty years. Recently, widespread resistance to OTC has been reported. In this study, the degree of antibiotic resistance was contrasted with DNA sequence variation for 125 P. ...

AIM To develop a real-time PCR-based strategy for the detection of Paenibacillus larvae vegetative cells and spores to improve the diagnosis and the screening of American foulbrood (AFB), the most harmful pathology of honeybee brood. METHODS AND RESULTS A real-time PCR that allowed selective identification and quantification of P. larvae 16S rRNA sequence was developed. Using standard samples...

After more than a century of American Foulbrood (AFB) research, this fatal brood infection is still among the most deleterious bee diseases. Its etiological agent is the Gram-positive, spore-forming bacterium Paenibacillus larvae. Huge progress has been made, especially in the last 20 years, in the understanding of the disease and of the underlying host-pathogen interactions. This review will p...

American foulbrood caused by Paenibacillus larvae brings with it several problems on beekeepers for the use of synthetic antibiotics, likewise led to appearance resistant strains and presence chemical residues in commercial products hive. In recent years, natural compounds control P. has increased. Herein, we propose determine value Minimal Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) a hydroalcoholic extrac...

Honeybee (Apis mellifera) imagines are resistant to the Gram-positive bacterium Paenibacillus larvae (P. larvae), causative agent of American foulbrood (AFB), whereas honeybee larvae show susceptibility against this pathogen only during the first 48 h of their life. It is known that midgut homogenate of adult honeybees as well as a homogenate of aged larvae exhibit strong anti-P. larvae activit...

The Gram-positive bacterium Paenibacillus larvae is the etiological agent of American Foulbrood. This bacterial infection of honey bee brood is a notifiable epizootic posing a serious threat to global honey bee health because not only individual larvae but also entire colonies succumb to the disease. In the recent past considerable progress has been made in elucidating molecular aspects of host...