Effects of Mushroom Extract on Honey Bees Infected with .

water crude extract was tested on honey bees for the first time. The first part of the cage experiment was set for selecting one concentration of the extract. Concentration of 200 µg/g was further tested in the second part of the experiment where bee survival and food consumption were monitored together with infection level and expression of five genes (abaecin, hymenoptaecin, defensin, apidaecin, and vitellogenin) that were evaluated in bees sampled on days 7 and 15. Survival rate of -infected bees was significantly greater in groups fed with -enriched syrup compared to those fed with a pure sucrose syrup. Besides, the anti- effect of extract was greatest when applied from the third day which coincides with the time of infection with Daily food consumption did not differ between the groups indicating good acceptability and palatability of the extract. extract showed a stimulative effect on four out of five monitored genes. Both anti- and nutrigenomic effects of extract were observed when supplementation started at the moment of infection or preventively (before or simultaneously with the infection).