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Published on: August 26, 2020
First confirmed report of a bacterial brood disease in stingless bees
Jenny Lee Shanks1, Anthony Mark Haigh2, Markus Riegler3
1School of Science and Health, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia; Plant Health Australia, Phipps Close, Deakin, ACT 2600, Australia.
Abstract:
Susceptibility to brood pathogens in eusocial stingless bees (Meliponini), alternative pollinators to honey bees, is unknown. Brood losses in managed colonies of the Australian stingless bee, Tetragonula carbonaria, were studied over 20months. We isolated a disease-causing bacterium, Lysinibacillus sphaericus (Firmicutes, Bacillaceae), from worker and queen larvae, brood cell provisions and honey stores. Pathogenicity experiments confirmed this bacterium as the causal organism. It took 22days from infection to first appearance of brood disease symptoms. This is the first confirmed record of a brood pathogen in stingless bees.
