• Journal of Apiculture
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.283-295
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• 2018

As Sacbrood virus (SBV), a causative agent of larval death and colony collapse in Apis cerana honey bee, is prevalent and poses one of the most significant threats to the Korean apiculture, development of methods to counter this viral disease is urgently needed. In this study we tested some SBV controlling methods, such as requeen, shook swam, adding Apis mellifera and spraying yogurt to SBV inoculated colony. Colony size measured by number of sealed brood and adult were evaluated every 15 days until two months while instances of recurrence were recorded up to five months after applying treatment methods. We also test the effects of yogurt on healthy and SBV-infected larvae at both in vitro reared larvae and colony level. Our result showed that all SBV controlling methods had similar success rates with respect to elimination of SBV clinical symptom up to 30 days post treatment. Mix-species and spraying yogurt method had similar pattern of sealed brood and adult number and higher than that of other SBV controlling methods up to 45 days post treatment. These two groups also showed the lower percentage of SBV recurrence (50% and 66.7%) at 120 days post treatment than other group that mostly colony had clinical symptom. Result on in vitro reared larvae challenged with yogurt showed that yogurt have neither harmless on healthy larvae nor remedial effect on SBV infected larvae. However, at colony level, colony in group received yogurt treatment removed significantly more SBV-infected larvae, SBV-killed larvae, and even healthy larvae in comparison to the control, suggested that yogurt could trigger the hygienic behavior of nurse bee. Our results recommended that it is practical in beekeeping by adding A. mellifera and spraying yogurt to control SBV in A. cerana colony.