And, sure enough, fluorescent microscopy confirmed that fragments of P. larvae were getting into royal jelly secreted by those bees which had been fed with the laced sugarwater.
Moreover, examination of this royal jelly revealed elevated levels, compared with royal jelly from bees that had not been dosed with P. larvae, of an antimicrobial peptide known as defensin-1.
His team has completed deciphering the Bacillus F DNA but now faces the complicated task of figuring out which genes are responsible for the longevity of the virus.