“…N. apis was first detected molecularly in 2004 (Webster et al, 2004). Since then, standard PCR assays using species specific primers followed by separation on agarose gels (Chen et al, 2008;Klee et al, 2007;Martin-Hernandez et al, 2007) and real-time PCR (Bourgeois et al, 2010;Burgher-MacLellan et al, 2010;Chen et al, 2009a;Cox-Foster et al, 2007;Traver and Fell, 2011) have improved detection and species identification. Before the use of molecular assays for species determination, it is possible that N. ceranae infections prior to 1996 may have been improperly diagnosed as N. apis (Fries et al, 2006).…”