# Resistannce to the antibiotic tetracycline in Honeybees



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I wonder what they would have found had they lloked at bees from my hives, since I do not use TM or Tylosin.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

sqkcrk said:


> I wonder what they would have found had they lloked at bees from my hives, since I do not use TM or Tylosin.


but does the person you get your queens from also not use antibiotics? If what they say is really true, then why hasn't more resistant afb shown up? I find much of the reaserch being done to be interesting, and great pieces of information to be used in other articles, but not of much use to me.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Good question Mike. I bet they do. I know one does, buyt don't know if he does in the queen rearing part of his operation.


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## cerezha (Oct 11, 2011)

wildbranch2007 said:


> but does the person you get your queens from also not use antibiotics?.... but not of much use to me.


 How it is related to the article above? Are you thinking that queen could transfer bacterial resistance to tetracycline to her daughters? Are you familiar with Lamarck?

Correction: 
I think I did not pay attention to the fact that new queen may introduce bad bacteria via pup. * wildbranch2007* I apologize for my "attack". It was not nice. Sergey


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

sqkcrk said:


> I wonder what they would have found had they lloked at bees from my hives, since I do not use TM or Tylosin.


Not much if you don't have any AFB present. If you do, it depends on where it came from. If you brought in comb from a contaminated source, then you would know, one way or another if your AFB was resistant to TM.

I do know that TM resistant AFB is around. A large number of nucleus colonies hit the market in New England, summer of 2011. Lots of disease problems...AFB, EFB, and SHB en masse. I confronted seller, telling him he shouldn't be dumping Tylan dependant bees on unsuspecting hobby beekeepers. He tried to weasel out of the issue by telling me he didn't use the product, as it was against BMP of Florida. Poppy-****! Maybe I wasn't supposed to see it, but his inspection report...which I was shown, has his AFB being severely resistant to TM. As the northern hobbyists don't even know what Tylan is...once they stopped the treatments, their new bees crashed...and spread their diseases. 

wildbranch...it won't matter to you, unless bees like these are set down next to one of your apiaries.


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

We do not test for antibiotic resistance. Please be honest. We do test for AHB (Africanized)
Worse than AFB resistance, use of any antibiotics allows AFB, EFB, Nosema to make bees sick.
Symbionts as Major Modulators of Insect Health: Lactic Acid Bacteria and Honeybees
Honeybees possess an abundant, diverse and ancient LAB microbiota in their honey crop with beneficial effects for bee health, defending them against microbial threats. Beekeeping management practices can negatively impact this microbiota. The crop microbiota of A. mellifera is composed of 13 bacterial species within the genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium [16], [17], [18] and it plays a key role in the production of honey [16] and bee-bread [19], long term stored food for both adult honeybees and larvae. We have demonstrated by both in vitro and in vivo studies that the LAB microbiota in A. mellifera inhibit one important honeybee pathogen, the bacterial brood pathogen Paenibacillus larvae that is the cause of the brood disease American foulbrood (AFB)

To dumb it down – antibiotics given to bees before there is a problem can cause a problem!

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%..._utmk=60534318 
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...before-there-is-a-problem-can-cause-a-problem


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## Ramona (Apr 26, 2008)

Bees emerge sterile...gut microbes in larvae are shed along with intestinal lining before pupation.

After emergence, bees get inoculated with culture from the hive. They can only get what is available. Inoculation likely happens orally, through cleaning, shared food, etc.

Where does the queen poop? Who cleans up after her and the others? Yes, we have seen workers poop in an observation hive that had only been closed for a few hours when poop was observed...another worker cleaned it up so fast it was almost like it hadn't happened.

If there is antibiotic resistance in the gut microbes of queen, this is part of what the workers will get when they are inoculated. They probably also get cultures from other workers. I've been puzzling through this for a while, trying to figure out where the gut microbes originate and how much effect in population as a whole comes from queen to workers, workers to queen, etc.

When it comes to the queen's poop, or poop in general, and how the colony is inoculated, there is a dearth of information.

You can read a lot about nosema but not so much about the benefits of healthy poop in a colony.

Many of us can probably sing the Activia jingle and have heard about the miracles of the fecal transplant for humans afflicted with C. difficile...bees aren't so different from us.

Microbes rule the world...for bees, too.

We aren't talking about antibiotic resistance in bees but in the microbial cultures that are shared throughout the colony.

Ramona


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Sergey, you should read this study carefully......

Deknow


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## sammyjay (May 2, 2011)

wildbranch2007 said:


> If what they say is really true, then why hasn't more resistant afb shown up?


My mentor said I think it was in the west indies that some of the bees have developed a degree of resistance to American Foulbrood because no one really treated for it there for quite a while.


Nathan


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Bees have been bred that are resistant to AFB thru hygenic behavior. Bees w/ a high degree of hygenic behavior are resistant to AFB by their behavior.

What wildbranch asked about was resistant AFB, AFB which is resistant to antibiotic treatment. Two different things.


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## cerezha (Oct 11, 2011)

deknow said:


> Sergey, you should read this study carefully......
> Deknow


 I think I did not pay attention to the fact that new queen may introduce bad bacteria via pup. * wildbranch2007* I apologize for my "attack". It was not nice. Sergey


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

I don't think the article here is that good, but at the bottom of the page there is a 7-8min audio interview with Dr. Moran that is worth listening to. I'm writing up some thoughts on this, and will post when they are done.

deknow

http://blogs.voanews.com/science-world/2012/11/02/antibiotics-might-contribute-to-bee-die-off/


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

cerezha said:


> wildbranch2007 I apologize for my "attack". It was not nice. Sergey


no problem I figure its a very good day when I get yelled at and get to talk about
the benefits of healthy poop in a colony all in one day.:thumbsup:
as long as I learn something I'm happy.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

...I can see the day in the future when the chit chat at bee club meetings won't be:
"How are your bees?"
"I've got a high mite count, so I'm treating"
...but instead will be:
"How are your bees?"
"Regular"

deknow


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

deknow said:


> ...I can see the day in the future when the chit chat at bee club meetings won't be:
> "How are your bees?"
> "I've got a high mite count, so I'm treating"
> ...but instead will be:
> ...


yep. it's kind of like when i'm asked about what kind of bees i have. my reply is 'happy bees'.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

This work shows rather definitively that gut microbiotia is heritable (and very old), and that a line damaged by antibiotics does not return (at least in 25+ years) to its original population. How these populations are affected by other treatments, feeds, and ag chemicals remains to be seen…but Gilliam’s work in the 70’s showed a big change in gut microbal makeupwhen bees were fed sugar, confined, exposed to 2,4,D, fumagillin, and terramycin (yeasts, molds, and bacteria).

What This Study Showed

• That gut microbes in bees from countries that never used antibiotics have a very low copy rate [infrequent in the population] of antibiotic resistance in their gut microbes
• That Bees From Dee Lusby’s operation have levels almost as low as those from countries that never used antibiotics…lower than “feral” bees from Utah…much lower than bees from the Tuscon Lab nearby (that are 2 years without antibiotics)….much, much lower than bees established from commercial packages.


What is Significant

• The honeybee microbial community is very diverse, and presumably selecting for only the antibiotic resistant individuals greatly reduces this diversity (a bottle neck selecting only for the antibiotic resistant individuals). In the buildup period following wiping out all the non-resistant variations, millions of years of co-evolution are thrown out the window.
• Remember that in parallel to selecting _for_ antibiotic resistance, since you are placing the microbial culture into an environment where antibiotics are used to suppress pathogenic bacteria, any pressure on the community to suppress these pathogens is removed…you are now selecting _against_ traits of bacteria that can suppress EFB, AFB, etc are selected _against_ when antibiotics are used.
• Thusly rebuilt communities lack the continuum of diversity inhabiting the continuum of niches that exist throughout the digestive tract and throughout the superorganism…they can’t possibly be as efficient as the undamaged version….and remember…these communities are heritable...the damaged culture is passed along with its damage intact to the next generation.
• Note that the not using of antibiotics, and the incorporation of feral stock has allowed a much less damaged version of these communities to persist in Dee’s bees vs. the bees up the road.
• Antibiotic resistance is metabolically expensive. Populations that are selected for antibiotic resistance have less resources for functions other than antibiotic resistance…this is to say that antibiotic resistance comes at a cost to the population.
• If you don’t think small cost savings are important and affect evolution in relatively short time periods, note the isolated populations of cave fish. When eyes don’t do you any good, the rare genetic combinations/mutations that don’t develop eyes become dominant.


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## Axtmann (Dec 29, 2002)

I wonder why beekeepers in Nord Amerika use antibiotics? It is a fact that you cannot cure AFB with antibiotics, you hide it. Eventually it breaks out and the result is catastrophic. It is not allowed to use it here and we still have bees, commercial beekeepers and hobby beekeepers. 
Antibiotics and up in honey. This is the reason why we have a import ban on honey from countries where beekeepers use antibiotics. We have to send honey for testing, if they find antibiotics we're loosing the permit to sell honey.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Axtmann said:


> I wonder why beekeepers in Nord Amerika use antibiotics? It is a fact that you cannot cure AFB with antibiotics, you hide it. Eventually it breaks out and the result is catastrophic. It is not allowed to use it here and we still have bees, commercial beekeepers and hobby beekeepers.
> Antibiotics and up in honey. This is the reason why we have a import ban on honey from countries where beekeepers use antibiotics. We have to send honey for testing, if they find antibiotics we're loosing the permit to sell honey.


very good point, and the reason why this practice is loosing popularity here as well.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

It is used as a preventitive and it isn't showing up in honey. If it did to any noticable degree it would be pulled from available use.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

mark, is it more feasible to apply the preventative treatments vs. isolating and destroying as it appears?


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Losing popularity? A third antibiotic for AFB has been approved in the last year....Tylan resistance isn't showing up because people aren't using Tylan.

deknow


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

squarepeg said:


> mark, is it more feasible to apply the preventative treatments vs. isolating and destroying as it appears?


For who?

TM is used prophylactically as a preventitive medication by some commercial beekeepers. That doesn't mean they don't have hives w/ active state AFB every now and then. When they do, and find it, they handle it, deal w/ it. It is destroyed when it appears.

Had your flu shot yet?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

deknow said:


> Losing popularity? A third antibiotic for AFB has been approved in the last year....Tylan resistance isn't showing up because people aren't using Tylan.
> 
> deknow


A third one? Terrimycin, Tylosin, and what?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

deknow said:


> Losing popularity? A third antibiotic for AFB has been approved in the last year....Tylan resistance isn't showing up because people aren't using Tylan.
> 
> deknow


not seeing anyone doing much afb prevention around here, couldn't say about elsewhere.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

sqkcrk said:


> A third one? Terrimycin, Tylosin, and what?


LINCOMIX Soluble Powder


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

When did this come on the mkt? How is it supposed to be used? How did you hear about it?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

new one to me too mark.

http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/ResourcesforYou/AnimalHealthLiteracy/ucm309134.htm


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

I don't remember where I heard about it. My guess is it's supposed to be used when your AFB won't respond to TM or Tylan anymore.

Bee Culture;Aug2012, Vol. 140 Issue 8, p75 I think is an article about it?

deknow


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

deknow said:


> I don't remember where I heard about it. My guess is it's supposed to be used when your AFB won't respond to TM or Tylan anymore.
> 
> Bee Culture;Aug2012, Vol. 140 Issue 8, p75 I think is an article about it?
> 
> deknow


I guess I will have to look that up. I haven't heard of any of my friends using it yet. I also have not heard of any AFB which doesn't respond to TM or Tylan. Not that I hear commercial guys talking about treating active state AFB either.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

I think beltsville tests for both kinds of resistance.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Yes, they do. I have seen many of those reports here in NY. My own and those of others who have had samples sent in to Beltsville.

I read the article you mentioned and Beltsville worked on getting the antibiotics approved, the one you mentioned and the 4 types of tylosin too. So, maybe we have 6 drugs and not just three.

This whole resistance thing is confusing to me. I still don't understand whether we would have resistance expressed in the Lab wheteher antibiotics were used or not. I have not used TM in ages and never used it consistantly or across my whole operation. And yet I will have reports of resistance. So, what does that mean to someone who burns cases found and does not treat?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

it means the resistant afb may have been brought in from somewhere else, somewhere that it had the opportunity to become resistant, perhaps by your strong bees robbing out a nearby colony.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

FWIW, I ran the notes I posted here by the PI of the study, just to make sure I wasn't overstating or misstating anything...it passed muster.

deknow


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## irwin harlton (Jan 7, 2005)

"it means the resistant afb may have been brought in from somewhere else, somewhere that it had the opportunity to become resistant,"

I understand Monsanto uses a antibiotic as a marker to keep track of ifs roundup ready genes


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

This chart from the study is pretty descriptive...in the top part, each color represents a separate antibiotic resistance gene, and in the bottom, you can see the relative amounts.


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