Fuente: PubMed "apiculture" Insects. 2026 Mar 19;17(3):334. doi: 10.3390/insects17030334.ABSTRACTThe extensive utilization of TMX, a substance characterized by its high toxicity towards honeybees, has exerted a deleterious influence on the employment of neonicotinoid insecticides and the proliferation of bee colonies. However, there is a lack of effective solutions to mitigate the toxicological impact of neonicotinoid insecticides on bees. The present study proposes a method of using MB to alleviate TMX poisoning in honeybee (Apis mellifera ligustica) larvae. The results demonstrated that when bee larvae ingested MB at a concentration of 0.32 mg·L-1, the mortality rate of larvae could be reduced from 47.2% to 25.0%. Transcriptome analysis identified the honeybee dihydrolipoyl dehydrogenase (AmDld) gene as one of the main genes involved in the function of MB. AmDld was highly expressed in larval hemolymph. Its expression levels and enzymatic content were suppressed by either TMX or MB alone but restored by the TMX+MB combination. RNAi-mediated knockdown of AmDld decreased AmDld content and increased larval mortality under the TMX+MB co-treatment from 25.0% to 40.6%. This indicated that the TMX+MB combination rescued AmDld levels, thereby alleviating TMX toxicity to bee larvae. The present study has demonstrated that the ingestion of MB by honeybee larvae has the capacity to reduce the toxicity of TMX, a toxic substance, through the action of the AmDld gene. This provides a novel approach to mitigating pesticide poisoning in bees.PMID:41898996 | PMC:PMC13026182 | DOI:10.3390/insects17030334