misswiredThe bees are taking it from all sides. :( #foulbrood #varroa
Chuck DarwinU.S.D.A. Approves First #Vaccine for #Honeybees
Dalan Animal Health’s vaccine for American #foulbrood, an aggressive bacterial disease, is the first for any insect in the United States.
Before you start imagining a tiny syringe being inserted into a bee, the vaccine — which contains dead versions of #Paenibacillus #larvae, the bacterium that causes American foulbrood — comes in the form of food.
The vaccine is incorporated into royal jelly, a sugar feed given to #queen #bees. Once they ingest it, the vaccine is then deposited in their ovaries, giving developing larvae immunity as they hatch.
The introduction of a vaccine comes at a critical moment for honeybees, which are vital to the world’s food system but are also declining globally because of climate change, pesticides, habitat loss and disease.
This honeybee vaccine, scientists say, could help pave the way for controlling a range of viruses and pests that have decimated the global population.
#Dalan #Animal #Health, which is based in Athens, Ga., developed the prophylactic vaccine to protect honeybees from American #foulbrood, an aggressive bacterium that can spread quickly from hive to hive. Previous treatments included burning infected colonies and all of the associated equipment, or using antibiotics.
The U.S.D.A. recommended that Dalan pursue a
conditional approval “to get this out onto the marketplace as quickly as possible.”
The company needed to show proof of “safety, purity and certain degrees of efficacy” to gain approval. It plans to continue collecting data while it applies for full approval.
#Diamond Animal Health, a manufacturer that is collaborating with Dalan, holds the conditional license.
Dalail #Freitak, an associate professor in honeybee research at the Karl-Franzens University of Graz in Austria and chief science officer for Dalan, said the vaccine could help change the way scientists approach animal health.
“There are millions of beehives all over the world, and they don’t have a good health care system compared to other animals,” she said. “Now we have the tools to improve their resistance against diseases.”
Scientists long assumed that insects could not acquire immunity because they lacked antibodies, the proteins that help many animals’ immune systems recognize and fight bacteria and viruses. Once scientists understood that insects could indeed acquire immunity and pass it to their offspring, Dr. Freitak set about answering the question of how they did so.
In 2015, she and two other researchers identified the specific protein that prompts an immune response in the offspring and realized they could cultivate immunity in a bee population with a single queen.
Their first goal was tackling American foulbrood, a bacterial disease that turns larvae dark brown and makes the hive give off a rotting smell. The disease ran rampant during the 1800s and the early 1900s in bee colonies in parts of the United States. While American foulbrood is not as destructive as #varroa #mites, the bacterium can easily wipe out colonies of 60,000 bees.
Dalan also hopes to use the American foulbrood vaccine as a map to produce vaccines for other diseases that affect honeybees.
“When we started, there was no regulatory path,” Freitak said. “No one has ever developed an insect vaccine — they’re wild animals who fly around,” compared to domesticated livestock and pets with vaccine protocols. She added, “We’re really hoping we’re going to change the industry now.
Mark Dunk
Dezene Huber 🌻
David Ano
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