Short CommunicationFirst confirmed report of a bacterial brood disease in stingless bees

•First confirmed record of a brood disease in stingless bees (Meliponini).•Signs and symptoms of the disease are described.•The causal organism was identified as Lysinibacillus sphaericus.

Susceptibility to brood pathogens in eusocial stingless bees (Meliponini), alternative pollinators to honey bees, is unknown. Brood losses in managed colonies of the Australian stingless bee, Tetragonula carbonaria, were studied over 20 months. We isolated a disease-causing bacterium, Lysinibacillus sphaericus (Firmicutes, Bacillaceae), from worker and queen larvae, brood cell provisions and honey stores. Pathogenicity experiments confirmed this bacterium as the causal organism. It took 22 days from infection to first appearance of brood disease symptoms. This is the first confirmed record of a brood pathogen in stingless bees.