{"id":4561,"date":"2026-06-10T12:23:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T06:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=4561"},"modified":"2026-06-10T14:33:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T09:03:15","slug":"what-is-american-foulbrood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-is-american-foulbrood\/","title":{"rendered":"American Foulbrood (AFB)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>American Foulbrood (AFB) Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beekeepers have been warned to increase the biosecurity of their hives after an outbreak of American Foulbrood disease (AFB) was recently confirmed in Scotland.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About American Foulbrood\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a<\/span><b> fatal infectious disease of honey bee larvae<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 caused by a <\/span><b>spore-forming bacterium <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">called<\/span><b> Paenibacillus larvae.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While it <\/span><b>only attacks larvae, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">AFB <\/span><b>weakens the colony <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and can quickly <\/span><b>lead to its death<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in only three weeks.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Cause:\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Paenibacillus larvae <\/span><b>produce spores when subjected to stress <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">such as lack of nutrients.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s these spores that actually cause and are the source of the disease.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Spores enter the larva <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">through feeding of <\/span><b>contaminated food.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">bacteria <\/span><b>kill the bee larva<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by completely consuming the body tissues.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>spores <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are<\/span><b> highly resistant to extremes<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of temperature, chemical attack, and other adverse conditions and can <\/span><b>remain viable for over 50 years <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once hardship has passed, for example, when nutrients become available again, the bacterium will germinate and reproduce.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The cycle will repeat if hardship occurs again. This means that it is <\/span><b>difficult to eliminate the spores from colonies.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Transmission<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although AFB is <\/span><b>not highly contagious,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> bacterial <\/span><b>spores <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">can easily be <\/span><b>spread between hives and apiaries through beekeeping practices<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> such as the exchange of equipment and movement of infected combs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Though<\/span><b> adult bees<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are not affected by AFB, they can <\/span><b>spread spores<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> within and between infected and clean hives through robbing and drifting.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Treatment<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The disease is <\/span><b>not able to be cured<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, meaning that <\/span><b>destruction of infected colonies<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and hives or <\/span><b>irradiation of infected material is the only way<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to manage AFB. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><strong>:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heraldscotland.com\/news\/26175266.american-foulbrood-disease-detected-scottish-bee-hive\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>HS<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>American Foulbrood is a fatal infectious disease of honey bee larvae  caused by a spore-forming bacterium called Paenibacillus larvae. Read more about American Foulbrood (AFB), Causes, Transmission, Treatment, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":107484,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8051],"class_list":{"0":"post-4561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-american-foulbrood","9":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4561"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107541,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561\/revisions\/107541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}