The United States Department of Agriculture recently approved a vaccine for honey bees, which sent messages of “good news” to concerned bee enthusiasts on social media. This is the first vaccine the U.S. has approved for insects. The hope is that this will help protect the decreasing population of the species.
The vaccine, developed by Dalan Animal Health in Athens, Georgia, targets American Foulbrood in honey bees. The disease is a fatal infection caused by bacterial spores, Paenibacillus larvae.
There is no known cure for the disease, which means the only form of protection utilized so far is to destroy contaminated colonies. The spores are not easily transmissible, but through basic hive-keeping tactics, other colonies may become infected through the repeated use of tools on multiple hives.
The vaccine is administered to the queen, protecting all her future offspring and ensuring the next generation of honey bees are healthy.
While honey bees are not native to the Americas, they were imported from Europe in the seventeenth century and are very effective at collecting pollen. Captive honey bees will be the recipient of this vaccine in order to support the harvest of honey for sale.
In 2022, the bumble bee was placed on the endangered species list, raising concerns for the future of the pollinator. The main causes of the species’ decline are habitat loss, pesticides and, most recently, infection through a parasite called Vairimorpha bombi. Could this vaccine lead to developments in protection for our native pollinators?
Mackenzie Davidson can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @mackenzie_films