Nosemosis in worker bees and their relationship with environmental factors in Jalisco, Mexico

Abstract

Nosemosis is caused by Nosema spp microsporidium that parasites the midgut of adult worker bees, it is mortal in its acute form and causes very important economic losses for the beekeeper. The knowledge of the infection caused by N. spp in worker bees can help to prevent the spreading or control infection between colonies. The objective of the present work was to determine the presence and intensity of infection of N. spp in worker bees' colonies and its relation with temperature, pluvial precipitation and altitude in this region. Samples of Apis mellifera workers (n=352) were obtained from eight municipalities of south southwest of Jalisco. For the diagnosis, the abdomen tenderize method (Cantwell) was used and the Jaycox method to obtain the number of spores by bee. One hundred percent of the samples resulted positive, and 83.75 \% of them between 1 to 5 million spores of by bee was presented. Weak correlations were obtained between the intensity of infection with the altitude (r= -0.35), the temperature (r= 0.44) and the pluvial precipitation (r= -0.12), for what can be suggested that these parameters do not majorly influence the presence of the disease. The obtained results suggest that all workers bees' colonies of the sampled municipalities should be treated in a periodic way with antibiotics, or biologic control removing each year older honeycombs in the colonies and the annual change of queens.