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In the United States, authorities have approved the first vaccine for bees. A new and promising technique. The goal is to protect the hives from American foulbrood, a disease that decimates bee colonies.
American foulbrood affects more than a quarter of bee colonies in the United States in some years. And it has spread widely around the world.
Deadly and highly contagious, the disease ravages entire colonies by spreading from hive to hive. This disease is one of the most devastating bacterial infections of bees “, explains the Road Animal Health. Caused by bacteria Paenibacillus larvaeit turns the larvae into a sticky, brown substance with a rancid smell.
American foulbrood previously forced beekeepers to burn the hives to avoid contamination.
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Swallowing leftover bacteria…
But researchers have found the parade. And to vaccinate the bees, no need for a syringe: worker bees were fed with the remains of the bacteria.
« The worker bees ingest the foodexplains Francisco Reynaldi, Argentinian researcher from the University of La Plata, specialist in bee pathologies, assimilate it and then produce a royal jelly containing this bacterium. This jelly serves as food for the queen of the hive who thus acquires immunity. During the research phase, it was found that this method protected between 30% and 50% of the larvae from this vaccinated queen. »
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This method of vaccinating bees against American foulbrood should slow the decline of these pollinators, which are essential to the agricultural sector. Pollinators decimated by disease, climate change and pesticides. An increasingly worrying situation that threatens the stability of biodiversity.
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