Tue 03 November 2020:
Bees are incredibly important for us and nature in general and not because of the honey they produce. Their pollination services are also very important for production of crops, which we use for food and animal feed. But bees are threatened by our own doing as well as bacterial infections.
Now scientists at the University of Helsinki that we can help bees – we have vaccines for that!
You probably heard about dying bees. This is mostly our own doing – huge farmlands leave bees without a sufficient food source and so they have to travel longer distances to survive. Furthermore, pesticides are not great for them either. But bacterial infections are killing bees too, which is why scientists have developed the Dalan AH oral vaccine, previously called PrimeBEE. Researchers in Finland designed thi vaccine, which is the world’s first.
Obviously, you can’t deliver shots to the bees – they have to eat their vaccines. Scientists found that bees actually get sick, because the queen bee eats something with pathogens in it. Those pathogens bind to vitellogenin, which is then carried to the queen’s eggs, eventually making the entire colony sick. Scientists discovered that this exact mechanism can be used to vaccinate bees as well. Scientists want to develop a vaccine against American foulbrood, which is a bacterial disease caused by the spore-forming Paenibacillus larvae ssp. larvae. Small amounts of pathogens could be ingested by the queen bee and passed down to the eggs, where it would be enough to cause an immune response, protecting the bees from dangerous infections.
Dalial Freitak, one of the researchers in this project, said: “I sincerely believe it is about time we start caring about our six-legged companions, whose work and contributions to our wellbeing have been neglected way too long. We take our bees for granted but this industry is a breaking point and it is high time that we find solutions to help to protect them.”
As every other company, the Dalan AH has been affected by the global pandemic. However, most of the company’s meetings have been online anyway, which is why the progress hasn’t been reduced to nothing. Scientists are still pushing ahead and should have the world’s first insect vaccine ready relatively soon.
Historically, vaccines are the most effective way to prevent and contain diseases among people and animals. No one ever looked into vaccines for insects, because this idea sounds ridiculous, but it might be worth pursuing. Now scientists are waiting for approval to develop a product, which can be introduced into the market. This is revolutionary – bee vaccines could change the way we care for our smallest friends.
The original article was published in: Technology.org https://www.technology.org/2020/11/02/vaccines-for-bees-scientists-are-about-to-change-the-way-we-care-for-our-isects/
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