In Vivo Effects of Antibiotics on Silkworm Bombyx Mori L Infected with Bacillus Coagulans

The present study was aimed to screen different antibiotics in vivo for their effects against the bacterium Bacillus coagulans in silkworm Bombyx mori in three experimental conditions viz., a) healthy larvae treated with the antibiotics b) larvae which were first inoculated with Bacillus coagulans immediately after the $2^{nd}$ moult and treated with the antibiotics from 24 hour after inoculation up to the end of the $5^{th}$ instar(pre-inoculated larvae) and c) larvae which were treated with the antibiotics right from hatching up to the end of the $5^{th}$ instar and inoculated with Bacillus coagulans immediately after the $2^{nd}$ moult(post-inoculated larvae). All the antibiotics used in this study stimulated better performance in improving the rearing performance and economic characters of the cocoons in healthy, pre-inoculated and post-inoculated larvae, besides reducing the mortality of infected larvae. Cephelexin and Tetracycline were more effective than the others in their overall performance under all the three experimental conditions. Chloramphenical caused greater increase in the length of the reelable silk filament, but was not as good in elevating the other parameters compared to the remaining antibiotics. Of the four concentrations of antibiotics tested, 2.0% performed better under all the three experimental conditions.