Does anybody know the morphology of Paenibacillus larvae on nutrient agar?

[OzBuzz]

Hi Everybody,

I'm guessing there might be another Microbiologist out there somewhere in the world of Beemaster - therefore does anyone know the colony morphology of Paenibacillus larvae on nutrient agar? In this case Tryptone Soy Agar? I decided to try something the other day and i plated up the guts of some brood that were ejected from my hive - i tell you what there's a colourful aray of bacteria in there! it's very interesting  :)

I thought though that since i have access to the equipment if i know the morphology then i can more regularly test my honey for the presence of any spores and then send my one sample off a year for 'official' testing

[AllenF]

So do you think you have American foulbrood?

[OzBuzz]

No i don't - if i did i would be sending it straight to a lab for confirmatory testing - but i'm interested in what it actually looks like on an agar plate if i ever do come across it in the future as i'm also doing some plating up for friends too... most of the time Bacillus & Paenibacillus have exactly the same colony morphologies, they have the same gram stain reaction - the normal method of identification is endospore location and PCR genetic analysis. I just found it incredibly interesting the bacterial colonies that i obtained from the broods gut - there's some bright red colonies, probably Serratia, along with some jet black colonies that look like a mass of brains... all of the stuff i isolated from the brood gut is gram negative so it's definitely not a Bacillus/Paenibacillus - i love bacteria hahah  :-D

[OzBuzz]

All of the bacteria i isolated were gram negative bacilli...typical gut bacteria