Screening of Dietary Ingredients against the Honey Bee Parasite Nosema ceranae.

Chiara Braglia,Loredana Baffoni,Paula Melisa Garrido,Daniele Alberoni,Diana Di Gioia,Martin Pablo Porrini

doi:10.3390/pathogens10091117

Chiara Braglia, Loredana Baffoni + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens10091117

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Abstract

Nosema ceranae is a major pathogen in the beekeeping sector, responsible for nosemosis. This disease is hard to manage since its symptomatology is masked until a strong collapse of the colony population occurs. Conversely, no medicaments are available in the market to counteract nosemosis, and only a few feed additives, with claimed antifungal action, are available. New solutions are strongly required, especially based on natural methods alternative to veterinary drugs that might develop resistance or strongly pollute honey bees and the environment. This study aims at investigating the nosemosis antiparasitic potential of some plant extracts, microbial fermentation products, organic acids, food chain waste products, bacteriocins, and fungi. Honey bees were singularly infected with 5 × 10 freshly prepared N. ceranae spores, reared in cages and fed ad libitum with sugar syrup solution containing the active ingredient. N. ceranae in the gut of honey bees was estimated using qPCR. The results showed that some of the ingredients administered, such as acetic acid at high concentration, p-coumaric acid, and Saccharomyces sp. strain KIA1, were effective in the control of nosemosis. On the other hand, wine acetic acid strongly increased the N. ceranae amount. This study investigates the possibility of using compounds such as organic acids or biological agents including those at the base of the circular economy, i.e., wine waste production, in order to improve honeybee health.

Highlights

Introduction published maps and institutional affilNosema ceranae is a unicellular sporogenous fungus belonging to the phylum microsporidia, which gives rise to a chronic debilitating infection in honey bees named nosemosis [1]
A toxic effect was only detected for the highest dose of nisin [NIS_H]
We proposed a screening of innovative ingredients that were never tested against the development of N. ceranae

Summary

Introduction

Nosema ceranae is a unicellular sporogenous fungus belonging to the phylum microsporidia, which gives rise to a chronic debilitating infection in honey bees named nosemosis [1]. This pathogen co-evolved with Apis cerana, whose parasitism became endemic in Asia. Apis mellifera colonies infected by N. ceranae were found for the first time in 2005 in Taiwan [2] and in 2006 in most European countries [3] When this host species shift occurred is unknown, if it is reasonable to believe that it happened at the time of A. mellifera introduction in Asia, in the 1880s [4]. A revision and redefinition of the genera Nosema and Vairimorpha proposes to rename N. ceranae and N. apis as Vairimorpha ceranae and Vairimorpha apis [6]

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