The Japanese honeybee, Apis cerana japonica, is a native honeybee
that is found in various parts of Japan. Compared with A. mellifera,
which is commonly used in beekeeping, A. cerana subspecies possess
greater antipathogenic potential, including resistance to Varroa
mites and AFB (Peng et al., 1987; Chen et al., 2000). These useful
traits might contribute to the control of bee pathogens in apiculture.
However, little isknownabout the interactions between gut bacteria
and pathogens in A. c. japonica. In particular, the actions of gut bacteria
against AFB remain elusive. To improve understanding of gut
microbial communities with a view to the future use of antagonistic
bacteria as biological agents,weidentified the bacterial species present
in the gut of A. c. japonica by 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis
and evaluated their activity against P. larvae.