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I previously blogged about honey bee colony collapse disorder (CCD) a disease that is destroying honey bee hives all over the world. While the incidence of the disease has been subsiding over the last year or so, it is still ravaging many hives. 

In the Wednesday edition of the online research journal PLOS a group of researchers from the University of Montana and the Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland suggested that CCD may be caused by two infectious agents; a virus and a fungus. 

Previously, many entomologists and apiary experts believed that CCD was possibly caused by multiple RNA viruses or the effect of certain pesticides. However, samples collected hives affected by CCD contained both a virus and a fungus whereas both agents were absent in unaffected hives. 

The new study said the suspect virus is insect iridescent virus (IIV) (Iridoviridae), which is similar to a virus first reported in India 20 years ago, as well as a virus found in moths. The virus infects the insect digestive system and the abdomen of infected insects takes on a bluish-green or purplish hue. The fungus, Nosema ceranae, can infect insects following ingested of its spores. Laboratory cage trials with a strain of IIV type 6 and Nosema ceranae confirmed that co-infection with these two pathogens was more lethal to bees than either pathogen alone.

Authors of the study speculate that initial infection of bee with one of the two agents makes infected bees more susceptible to infection by the second agent. In other words, primary infection by one agent followed by secondary infection may be responsible for the devastating effects of CCD. Further research will be necessary to confirm that both agents are responsible for CCD.

Until next time.....

Good Luck and Do Good Science!!!!!!

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When I was an undergraduate pre-vet student at Cornell, I took a course called “Introduction to Bee Keeping.” In Cornell parlance this was a so-called gut course: one that you took because it was easy to get an A grade. The course was taught by a professional beekeeper named Roger Morse who kept his bees in Ithaca during the Spring/Summer in Florida during the winter. At that time, price of honey had nearly tripled (it was during the counterculture days) and beekeepers were living large. As is often the case, this “gut course” was one of the most fascinating and best courses that I took at Cornell and it provided me with a life long appreciation and respect for honey bees.

The reason for this soliloquy is that in today’s New York Times there was an article that described how the German government is using honeybees to assess the levels of air pollution in and around several major municipal airports. This is accomplished by analyzing the honey produced by bees maintained in hives near the airport for environmental toxicants like hydrocarbons and heavy metals. Honey produced by the airport bees is compared to honey produced by bees in hives in less industrial areas as a means of comparison. Preliminary data suggest that the airport honey “was comparable to honey produced in areas without any industrial activity.” However a German official indicated that “a much larger data sampling over more time is needed for a definitive conclusion but preliminary results are promising.”

The bees are maintained by local bee keepers and the honey (once deemed environmentally sound) is given away as gifts to airport travelers. While biomonitoring using bees doesn’t replace traditional methods of analyses for environmental pollutants German officials contend that “it’s a very clear message for the public because it is easy to understand.”

Jamie Ellis, assistant professor of entomology at the Honey Bee Research and Extension Laboratory, University of Florida in Gainesville said “We all believe it can be done, but translating the results into real-world solutions or answers may be a little premature.” Still, similar work with insects to gauge water quality has long been successful. Who knows; maybe honey bees can be used as modern day biological sentinels of pollution similar to canaries in coal mine that were used to detect toxic gases. 

Regardless of their use, honey bees are still fascinating and cool in my book. And, because of the beekeeping course that I took 36 ago, I can confidently tell my children that the insects that are bothering them are not bees but wasps!!!!!!!!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!

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Colony Collapse Disorder (CDD) a mysterious syndrome that kills adult worker bees outside of the hive has been plaguing Europe and the US in recent years. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that American beekeepers have lost 37% of their hives to CCD in 2008 after losing 31% the year before. The government estimates that a third of the US food supply may be at risk--$15 billion annually in vegetables, nuts and fruits from plants that depend on bee pollination. The cause of CDD is still hotly debated but many scientists believe that it is caused by a virus

A start up company in Miami FL (my old stomping grounds) called Beeologics is developing a vaccine against all of the apiary viruses that could be responsible for CDD. The company was started by two Israelis, Eyal Ben-Chanoch at tech entrepreneur who helped design the first Intel Pentium chip and Ilan Sela a bee genomics expert. 

The vaccine is pending FDA approval and Beeologics expects it to hit the US market this summer and sell it for $2 per dose. A hive will need one dose per month and current estimates suggest that there are 2.5 million hives in the US. Not a bad revenue stream!

For those of you who may not know, bee keeping is big business and can be lucrative for beekeepers. I learned everything I know about bee keeping as an undergraduate at Cornell when I took Introduction to Beekeeping in my senior year. It was one of the best courses that I ever took at Cornell because it was taught by an entomologist who was also a commercial beekeeper!   Since then, I have always been extremely fond of honey bees—they are fascinating creatures.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!

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As an undergraduate at Cornell, I took a course called "Bee Keeping" mostly because it had the reputation of being a  “gut” course (i.e., easy to ace) and I had a passing interest in entomological microbiology. To this day, I will tell you that it is one of the best courses that I have taken in my academic career. It was taught by a practicing bee keeper who maintained hives in Florida during the winter and in Ithaca during the summer (not surprisingly the course was taught in the Spring semester so that his bees could pollinate the local crops).

Not only did we learn a lot about honey bee biology and social insect behavior, we also learned a great deal about honey and its virtues (we even got to sample different types of honey from time to time). One of honey’s lesser known properties is that it is sterile. This is because honey is extremely hygroscopic and has high concentrations of fructose, thereby preventing the growth of bacteria. These properties led me to wonder in those days whether honey would be an effective antibiotic in certain situations. 

Over the next 30 years or so, I had all but forgotten about the possible use of honey as an antibacterial. Then, much to my surprise, I came across a recent Canadian study which suggests that honey may be useful to treat a variety of infections. Apparently, honey is surprisingly effective in treating bacterial biofilms which are increasingly implicated in the etiology of many chronic skin, mucosal and wound infections. Previous studies showed that honey is effective in wound healing. The researchers who conducted the study also suggested that a “honey rinse” might be effective for treating  "stubborn ear, nose and throat infections."

Interestingly, not all of the honey that was tested exhibited potent antibacterial properties. Canadian clover and buckwheat honey didn’t exhibit any antibacterial properties at all. This suggests that the plant nectars that the bees use to make honey might influence the antibiotic properties of various honeys. It is important to note that the results of these experiments are very preliminary and additional studies will definitely be required to support or refute the use of honey as an antibiotic. Nevertheless, I thought the results were exciting and worth mentioning.

Until next time….don't forget to eat your honey!

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (try beekeeping…its lucrative these days)!!!!!!

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