Grant: CCI Applied Research and Development Grants

Several honeybee diseases, including parasitic, viral, fungal, and bacterial have been affecting the beekeeping industry for a long time. They include American Foulbrood (AFB), European Foulbrood (EFB), varroosis, and viral diseases. AFB is a disease that affect older honeybee brood and it can produce billions of spores after infection of the brood while EFB is a disease for younger honeybee brood as it affects and kills broods of 4-5 days old. The most common viruses detected in Alberta are Deformed wing virus (DWV-A, DWV-B), Black queen cell virus (BQCV), Sacbrood virus (SBV), and Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV). These diseases have an enormous impact on the beekeeping industry, costing billions of dollars worldwide. To fight these diseases, antibiotics (such as tetracyclines, tylosin, and lincomycin) have been used to treat affected bee colonies in the USA and Canada. However, the effectiveness of these chemicals has proven to be limited with the development of resistance by the bee pathogens and the contamination of honey and bee products with antibiotic residues. Novel and alternative products such as plant extracts have been suggested for treatment of the diseases (Chaimanee et al., 2017; Garrido et al., 2024) as several plant extracts contain antimicrobial activities. Thus, our industry partner has developed an alternative and novel plant extract to fight the diseases. In this project, we propose to treat honeybee colonies prophylactically with the plant extract and evaluate the bacterial and viral load. As well, we will analyze the eventual presence of the plant extract in honey produced by the treated colonies.