Bacterial community associated with worker honeybees ( <i>Apis mellifera</i> ) affected by European foulbrood

Abstract

High-throughput Illumina sequencing permitted a semi-quantitative analysis of the presence of <i>M. plutonius</i> within the honeybee worker microbiome. The results of this study indicate that worker bees from EFB-diseased colonies are capable of transmitting <i>M. plutonius</i> due to the greatly increased incidence of the pathogen. The presence of <i>M. plutonius</i> sequences in control colonies supports the hypothesis that this pathogen exists in an enzootic state. The bacterial groups synergic to both the colonies with clinical signs of EFB and the EFB-asymptomatic colonies could be candidates for probiotics. This study confirms that <i>E. faecalis</i> is a secondary invader to <i>M. plutonius</i>; however, other putative secondary invaders were not identified in this study.