Figure 4.

Mean transcript expression (±95% CI) of the honey bee antimicrobial peptides, abaecin and hymenoptaecin, the thermo-responsive heat shock protein 70 Ab-like (Hsp 70Ab-like), and the nutritional marker vitellogenin normalized to the reference genes β-actin and ribosomal protein S5 (RPS5). Newly-emerged workers were placed in cages and fed sucrose solution until day 7 (Pre-Treatment) and given either sucrose solution alone (Sucrose) or A. apis inoculum in sucrose solution (Challenge) from day 7–14 (Treatment). A subsample of workers was collected from replicate cages at the end of both periods (n = 7 or 8 workers/cage, 3 cages/treatment group) for the RT-qPCR analysis.