Diagnosis of paenibacillus larvae honeybees disease in jordan using PCR techniques

American foulbrood disease (afb) is considered one of the most virulent bacterial diseases of honeybee (apis mellifera linnaeus,1758) it has a vital negative impact on the beekeeping industry worldwide. this disease is caused by a spore forming bacterium paenibacillus larvae that affects honeybee larvae. this work includes the subsequent diagnosis including microbiological and pcr procedure for detection of p. larvae. fifty-six honey and larval samples were collected from 56 inspected honeybee colonies located in 53 apiaries representing beekeeping all over jordan. the samples were examined to assess the presence of paenibacillus larvae in honey samples by using both microbiological methods and pcr techniques. paenibacillus larvae was isolated from 41.6% samples (honey and larval) using bacteriological methods and 38.5% using pcr techniques. pcr were effectively used to amplify a specific region of the genome of p. larvae from pure culture isolates,honey and larvae samples; amplified regions include: enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (eric) and 35kda metalloprotease. the positive pcr samples were collected in amman,irbid,al-ghor,al-zarqa and al-balqa.