To tackle the issue of honeybee decline, caused in part by disease, the first vaccine for use in honeybees has been approved by the US government. This is according to an article in The Guardian. The vaccine, which was created by US biotech company Dalan Animal Health, has been given a conditional license by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and is designed to tackle American foulbrood disease. This disease not only weakens hives, but it also causes collapse of the entire colony.
Dalan Animal Health’s chief executive Annette Kleiser said, “Our vaccine is a breakthrough in protecting honeybees. We are ready to change how we care for insects, impacting food production on a global scale”.
What is American Foulbrood?
American foulbrood is a bacterial disease that is caused by the Paenibacillus larvae bacterium. It typically causes the death of the brood, which then severely weakens or kills the colony. There is no cure for this disease, so a vaccine to prevent it will be welcome news for beekeepers.
American foulbrood is not a contagious disease, but it can be easily spread from one colony to another by beekeepers or drifting adult bees. Prior to the approval of this vaccine, the only way to stop the disease affecting or spreading through apiaries was to take preventative measures and to deal with any infections as soon as they occurred.
When the disease infects a colony, beekeepers are required to destroy and burn the colony and then prevent the further spread by administering antibiotics.
The vaccine will work by providing bee larvae with some immunity to the disease as they hatch. The vaccine will be placed into the royal jelly that is fed to the queen by the worker bees. As the queen ingests the vaccine, it will be present in her ovaries and will pass to the larvae.
Why It’s Important to Save the Honeybee
There is a particularly good reason that efforts are ongoing to prevent the decline of the honeybee. These important pollinators, along with birds and other insects, are responsible for pollinating billions of dollars’ worth of crops every single year. Much of the food we eat requires pollination, making bees very important in terms of the food chain.
In fact, there are some plants that are exclusively pollinated by bees so if the honeybee and other bee species were to die off completely, these plants would soon follow. After that, the animals that eat these plants would be under threat, and this would continue on up through the food chain until humans were faced with mass food shortages. Although this is not something that would happen overnight, a world without bees would be a disaster in terms of global population.
There are many reasons why the bee is under threat, and it is not just disease. Habitat loss as well as the use of pesticides and climate change are affecting bee species across the globe. It is for this reason that companies such as Project Honey Bees are doing all they can to help with bee conservation. By donating some of the proceeds from the sale of every piece of bee jewelry, they are helping to fund research into ways of protecting these important insects.
Conclusion
Bee decline is something that we should all be worried about. If there were no bees in the world, we would struggle to sustain the global population. This is because bees are one of the most important pollinators we have. Thankfully, a new vaccine approved by the USDA will provide a level of protection against one of the biggest threats to the honeybee – American foulbrood.
