Abstract
The Brazilian Sac Brood is a disease that affects apiaries of Africanized bee hives in Brazil, thereby making them susceptible to high losses. This study investigated the pathogenicity of Africanized bee hives by the entomopathogenic fungi in a Brazilian Sac Brood endemic region. The degree of fungal contamination, presence of mycotoxins in beehive elements, and vulnerability of healthy beehives in environments subjected and not subjected to the disease were investigated. From the contaminating fungal load, species that are mycotoxin producers and pathogenic causing mortality in the bees have been isolated. The analysis of bee pollen and bee bread samples did not show the presence of the toxic pollen of Stryphnodendron (Fabaceae), which has been indicated as the causative agent of mortality in pre-pupal stage larvae. However, bee bread showed the highest correlation between substrate and fungal contamination.
Highlights
Honeybees are vulnerable throughout their life to a continuous onslaught of various saprophytic microorganisms, pathogens, and parasites
According to Message et al (1995), Brazilian Sac Brood (BSB) symptoms are similar to Sac Brood Virus (SBV) and until the year 2012, a previous investigation of numerous samples of larvae with sacbrood-like symptoms collected from various parts of Brazil found no evidence of this virus, based on viral particle morphology and serological methods
SBV had the first detection in Brazil distinct from the regions which have the occurrence of BSB (Freiberg et al, 2012)
Summary
Honeybees are vulnerable throughout their life to a continuous onslaught of various saprophytic microorganisms, pathogens, and parasites. Brazilian Sac Brood (BSB) is an important threat to honey bee health in Brazil, occurring mainly in southeast Brazil, thereby incurring huge losses in the bee populations (Carvalho and Message, 2004). This disease is characterized by brood that fails to pupate and subsequently dies (Castagnino et al, 2011). Investigations in the Brazilian apiaries show that the cause of BSB is the consumption of tannin by the bees, which is a toxic substance that enters the beehive via the pollen loads from Stryphnodendron (Fabaceae) flowers (Cintra, 2002; Message, 2002). Studies have shown regions with cases of BSB where the consumption of toxic pollen has not been verified in the beehive (Pacheco, 2009), suggesting that this disease may have another causative agent
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