Abstract
Honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) are insects that have an important role in plant pollination as well as production of benefical products such as honey, propolis, pollen, royal jelly, bee venom and beeswax. There is a growing interest in bee diseases and loss, which is a major threat to the economy and human health. Nosemosis is an adult honey bee disease which effects its digestive system mostly. The cause for the disease is Nosema apis or Nosema ceranae but the two can be seen together, too. This article aims to explore the transmission of Nosemosis and its effect on honey. For this purpose, a field study was conducted in Muğla province, where 51 pieces were collected from bee yards as spring samples and 51 pieces from bee yards as autumn samples during these two seasons, and 51 honey samples from bee yards were examined during the honey harvest. The results revealed that Nosema spp. which was obtained from honey bee samples collected in spring was more effective on honey samples. Nosema spp. was found to have a linear relation with the infection in the hive. It was determined that the percentage of Nosema spores seen in adults was 1.63%. This result contributed to the literature by providing this ratio used in estimating the level of infection in the colonies by means of honey sampling. Furthermore this is the first study where the contamination risk of honey from the infected colonies is calculated. Hopefully, this study can provide background for further research on the protection of bee colonies and risk assessment against Nosema spp. disease.
Highlights
Honeybees have a crucial role to carry 75% of pollination, so honeybee colony losses is a great threat to the agricultural production globally
As a result of microscopic investigations in adult honey bee samples both for Spring and Autumn, N.ceranae spores were observed in 20 samples, N. apis spores were observed in 13 samples, and both N. apis and N. ceranae were observed together in 69 samples (Figure 2)
Nosema spp. spores counts obtained from honey samples (Figure 3)
Summary
Honeybees have a crucial role to carry 75% of pollination, so honeybee colony losses is a great threat to the agricultural production globally. In Spain, N. ceranae is typically associated with reduced colony survivorship (Higes et al, 2008), whereas in other parts of Europe (Genersch et al, 2010) and in North America (Guzman et al, 2010; Villa et al, 2013), its virulence is debated Possible explanations for this variation include parasite or host genetics (Medici et al, 2012), climate (Chen et al, 2012), nutrition (Alaux et al, 2010), or interactions with other stressors such as environmental contaminants or other parasites (Pettis et al, 2013). That is why disappearing of honeybees must be investigated and in cases like Nosemosis infections, risk assessment should be practiced
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