We developed single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers and are establishing diagnostic systems to distinguish disease resistance- and susceptible-strains of honey bees using the SNPs. For development of SNP markers, whole genome was sequenced each from 20 individuals of “disease resistance-strain” and “susceptible-strain” of Apis mellifera ligustica using the Illumina HiSeq 2000 sequencer. Approximately, 344 and 294 million sequence reads were mapped to the honeybee reference assembly (Amel_4.5) for each strain, respectively. Among the total 2,246,428 SNPs yielded, 33 were found to be fixed between the two strains with all homozygosity. Sixteen of them were casually amplified and sequenced from randomly selected each 10 individual of honey bees from each strain and presented strain specific SNPs. These ten SNPs were used to diagnose the two strains either by original size difference, caused by indel-accompanying SNP, typical PCR-RFLP, or AS PCR.

The belief that honey bee venom (BV) can be used to treat certain immune-related diseases, such as arthritis and rheumatic conditions, goes back to antiquity. A growing number of reports have demonstrated that BV contains at least 18 pharmacologically active components, including phospholipase A2 (PLA2). Recent research has shown that bee venom PLA2 (bvPLA2) induces protective immune responses against several diseases including asthma, Parkinson’s disease, and drug-induced organ inflammation. However, the antiviral properties of bvPLA2 have not been well investigated. Hence, we examined the potential inhibitory effects of bvPLA2 and its possible mechanism of action against a broad panel of pathogenic viruses in vitro. Pre-treatment with bvPLA2 significantly inhibited the replication of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), coxsackie virus (H3), enterovirus-71 (EV-71), herpes simplex virus (HSV) and Adenovirus (AdV) dramatically. However, bvPLA2 did not show antiviral activity against Influenza A virus (PR8) and Newcastle disease virus (NDV). Such inhibitory effects were explained by blocking of the attachment of the virus to cells upon bvPLA2 treatment. Additionally, we observed that Heparan sulfate (HS) has an inhibitory effect on the attachment of HSV to the cell surface dose dependently, which was inconsistent with bvPLA2 treatment. These findings suggest that bvPLA2 has an inhibitory effect on the replication of diverse viruses by blocking their attachment to the cell surface and could be a promising source of natural antiviral agents.

Climate change and global warming are directly effecting the population dynamics of insects of medical importance and insect pests of agricultural commodities during the last few years. The outbreak of some insect-borndiseases and decreasing yield of agricultural products are both caused and results of climate change are known everywhere in the world. Recent reports of honey bee diseases and out breaks, as well as increase in the incidence of CCD(Collapse Colonial Disease) are causing great concerns and pose big problem for our bee keepers in many countries in North America and Europe. These important infectious diseases are possible carried and propagated by bee mites primarily by Varroa mites, which have recently experienced increasing populations in USA and UK includes some European countries. Recently some Asian honey bees adapted to live in the urban areas as the example of Apis dorsata move to Mae Fah Luang Campus more than 30 colonies and even in Chulalonkorn Campus more than 10 colonies increase from few colonies in the the last few years. Apis florea have been found more than 161 colonies this year in Kanchanaburi (River Kwai province) this year(2009). The discussion of some wild honey bees migration will concentrate on research program of our bee research unit of the university in Thailand.