Evidently, adult honey bees produce natural antibiotics that prevent the germination of AFB spores in their guts. This substance may be fed to larvae, as well, inhibiting the germination in them as well. Evidently, only the very young are susceptible, as they may begin to produce this substance themselves as they mature, or there be more of it present in their food.


Adult Honeybee’s Resistance against Paenibacillus larvae larvae, the Causative Agent of the American Foulbrood. Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 77, 231–236 (2001)

> Honeybee larvae suffer a high rate of mortality when inoculated with P. larvae larvae spores at a very young age; mortality decreases sharply as the age at inoculation increases. Spores germinate in the gut in larvae and do not germinate in adults. We found that extracts prepared from the midguts of winterbees and from 8-day-old workers contain a substance or a group of substances that suppress the growth and most likely the germination of the bacterial agent of American foulbrood. Our investigation demonstrated the existence of a substance in the midgut of honeybees that is at least in part responsible for the resistance of adult honeybees to infection by P. larvae larvae. 

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