DIAGNOSTIC MEASURES REGARDING VIRAL DISEASES OF BEES IN THEIR MODERN DOMESTIC TECHNOLOGICAL SCHEME KEEPING AND BREEDING

Abstract

Only the most prosperous apiaries in veterinary and sanitary terms are able to ensure the proper functioning of the beekeeping industry. To do this, it is necessary to carry out timely and comprehensive diagnostic production and laboratory measures in order to identify the causative agents of bee diseases and prevent their spread. One of the modern high-precision methods is the polymerase chain reaction using specific primers. This method of analysis is quite widely used in many countries of the world for the diagnosis of viral diseases of bees. The purpose of the research is a comparative assessment of the use of two methods: epizootological examination in the field and diagnosis of viruses using PCR with specific primers for entomopathogenic viruses. As part of the experiment, 162 samples of pathological material from 17 regions of Ukraine were examined. According to the results of a three-year epizootological examination, clinical examination of families and differential diagnosis, 146 samples of pathological material were selected for PCR research. Out of 146 samples tested by PCR, only 51 were positive, which is 34.9%. This confirms the difficulty of establishing a diagnosis of viral diseases of bees based on clinical signs. Analyzing the results obtained over the years of research, it should be noted that the lowest number of positive cases of bees affected by viral agents according to PCR results was recorded in 2015 - 9 samples (17.6%) of cases, the largest - in 2016 - 27 (52.9%). According to the determination of the specific share of each of the studied viruses, it was established that the most common in 2014 were chronic paralysis (26.7 %) and sac-like brood (46.7 %), in 2015 – sac-like brood (66.7 %), in 2016 – chronic paralysis and saccular fetus. This indicates that effective and high-quality diagnostics of viral infections, apart from the viral disease of offspring, have not yet been sufficiently developed in Ukraine. Keywords: viral diseases of bees, epizootological, clinical method of research, polymerase chain reaction.