The Ministry of Agriculture has approved a first vaccine to fight against American foulbrood, a contagious and devastating disease for bees.
Good news for American beekeepers who have seen bee populations decline in recent years. Between global warming, the destruction of their habitat, pesticides and diseases, these pollinating insects are badly mistreated. A worrying situation that threatens the stability of biodiversity and risks having serious consequences on agriculture, among others
In an attempt to remedy this, the United States Department of Agriculture approved the first-ever vaccine to protect honey bees against American foulbrood disease. A conditional license has been issued to Dalan Animal Health (DAH), a pioneering insect health biotechnology company based in Athens, GA. The serum will first be available to professional beekeepers.
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Deadly and highly contagious, American foulbrood ravages entire colonies by spreading from hive to hive. On the DAH website, scientists explain that this disease is “one of the most devastating bacterial infections of bees“. Caused by bacteria Paenibacillus larvae, it turns the larvae into a sticky, brown substance with a rancid smell. Originally from the United States, foulbrood has spread widely throughout the world. A European variant is particularly prevalent in France.
“A step forward for beekeepers”
No remedy existed until then to fight against foulbrood. In some areas of the United States, this disease has been found in a quarter of hives, reports The Guardian . Beekeepers were forced to destroy and burn all infected colonies and administer antibiotics to prevent further spread.
The discovery of this serum is “an exciting step forward for beekeeperssaid Trevor Tauzer, owner of Tauzer Apiaries and board member of the California State Beekeepers Association in a statement. “If we can prevent infection in our hives, we can avoid costly treatments and focus our energy on other important things to keep our bees healthy.“, he adds.
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Unlike traditional vaccines, this one is not injected with a syringe. The process involves mixing dead larvae of Paenibacillus to royal jelly, then brought by worker bees to future queens. Once ingested, these dead bacteria will settle in their ovaries. Future workers born to one of these queens will therefore be immune to foulbrood.
Save global food production
«There are millions of hives all over the world, and they don’t have a good health care system compared to other animalscomments Dalail Freitak, associate professor of bee research at Karl-Franzens University in Graz, Austria and chief scientific officer of Dalan.
Not protecting these hives”will impact food production globally“, also warns Annette Kleiser, general manager of Dalan Animal Health. “Global population growth and climate change will increase the importance of bee pollination in securing our food supply“, she explains in a press release.
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According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, pollinators such as bees, birds and bats play a role in about a third of the world’s agricultural production.