A scientific note: Survey for Nosema spp. in preserved Apis spp.

International audienceHistorically, Nosema apis was thought to bethe only species to infect Apis mellifera, but recentreports showed that Nosema ceranae is asecond microsporidium capable of infectingA. mellifera (Higes et al. 2006; Huang et al.2007). While N. ceranae was first described in1996 in Apis cerana (Fries et al. 1996) and initiallybelieved to be restricted to the natural hostrange of A. cerana (Fries 1997), N. ceranae hasbeen found everywhere beekeeping is practiced.N. ceranae has been present in the USA since1995 (Chen et al. 2008) and the earliest published reportof A. mellifera samples containing N. ceranae datesback to 1990 in samples from Uruguay (Invernizziet al. 2009). N. ceranae has also been found in otherApis spp. such as Apis florea and Apis dorsata coloniesin Northern Thailand, but no N. apis was detected(Chaimanee et al. 2010; Suwannapong et al. 2011).Samples from the Solomon Islands revealed that Apiskoschevnikovi were infected with N. ceranae, but onlyin areas where A. cerana had been sympatric and noN. apis was detected (Botías et al. 2012).N. ceranae has also been found in species outside ofthe genus Apis. Three species of bumble bee collectedfrom 2005–2008 in South America have been found tobe naturally infected with N. ceranae: Bombus atratus,Bombus morio, and Bombus bellicosus, but not infectedwith N. apis or Nosema bombi (Plischuk et al. 2009).Interestingly, in B. atratus, Nosema spores wer