Chalkbrood, caused by Ascosphaera apis (Maassen ex Claussen) Olive & Spiltor, is a cosmopolitan fungal disease of honey bee larvae (Apis mellifera L.) for which there is no chemotherapeutic control. Using in vitro larval rearing methods, lysozyme-HCl, a food-grade antimicrobial extracted from hen egg albumen, was found to suppress chalkbrood at levels of 0.75-1.5% (g/mL) of larval diet. In field trials, lysozyme-HCl did not affect adult bee survival or brood production and did effectively suppress the development of chalkbrood disease. Daily chalkbrood mummy production decreased by a factor of 10 in colonies treated with three treatments of 6000 mg of lysozyme-HCl when compared with infected, untreated controls and reduced disease symptoms to levels observed in uninfected colonies. Honey production was also found to be significantly negatively correlated with increased disease severity. Lysozyme-HCl is a promising safe therapeutic agent for the control of chalkbrood in honey bee colonies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:AEU.10048/1439 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Van Haga, Amanda L. |
| Contributors | Keddie, B. Andrew (Biological Sciences), Pernal, Stephen F. (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada), Currah, Randolph S. (Biological Sciences), Dosdall, Lloyd M. (Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Science) |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 2508656 bytes, application/pdf |
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