Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 16, 2026

Monitoring Colony-level Effects of Sublethal Pesticide Exposure on Honey Bees
Published on: November 15, 2017
Triplex real-time PCR for detection of Crithidia mellificae and Lotmaria passim in honey bees
Guang Xu1, Evan Palmer-Young2, Kim Skyrm3
1Department of Microbiology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA. gxu@umass.edu.
Abstract:
Currently, light microscopic examination of cell morphology cannot discriminate Crithidia mellificae and Lotmaria passim with 100% certainty. Here, a minor groove-binding (MGB) probe-based multiplex real-time PCR assay was developed for the simultaneous and quantitative detection of C. mellificae and L. passim in honey bees. A conserved Hymenoptera 18S rRNA gene was built in as an internal control that allows accurate detection of PCR inhibition and failure of DNA extraction. The newly developed assay was also applied to field samples. Of 21 honey bee colonies (446 bees) sampled from six counties in both central and eastern Massachusetts, 3 colonies (14.29%) and 8 bees (1.79%) were infected with L. passim, and 1 colony (4.76%) and 1 bee (0.22%) with C. mellificae. Our data showed a low rate of trypanosomatid infection, and L. passim was more prevalent than C. mellificae in honey bee samples in Massachusetts.
Related Concept Videos
Real Time RT-PCR
The real-time quantification of the number of amplified products is...
PCR
Real Number System
Real Number Operations
Real Zeros of Polynomials
Trigonometric Functions of Real Numbers

