permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Wildlife and Habitat Conservation News: Using Microscopic Bugs to Save the
Bees
http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/47964

From: Brigham Young University
Published October 27, 2014 02:49 PMUsing Microscopic Bugs to Save the Bees

For decades, honeybees have been battling a deadly disease that kills off
their babies (larvae) and leads to hive collapse. It’s called American
Foulbrood and its effects are so devastating and infectious, it often
requires infected hives to be burned to the ground.

Treating Foulbrood is complicated because the disease can evolve to resist
antibiotics and other chemical treatments. Losing entire hives not only
disrupts the honey industry, but reduces the number of bees for pollinating
plants.

Now an undergraduate student at BYU, funded by ORCA grants, has produced a
natural way to eliminate the scourge, and it’s working: Using tiny killer
bugs known as phages to protect baby bees from infection.

“Phages are the most abundant life form on the planet and each phage has a
unique bacteria that it will attack,” said Sandra Burnett, BYU professor of
microbiology and molecular biology. “This makes phage an ideal treatment
for bacterial disease because it can target specific bacteria while leaving
all other cells alone.”

Although phages are plentiful in nature, finding the perfect phage for the
job takes a lot of hunting. That’s where student Bryan Merrill comes in.

Merrill has been researching ways to treat American Foulbrood since joining
a “Phage Hunters” class his freshman year at BYU. Merrill loved the class,
which introduced him to the process of phage identification, and so he
approached Burnett with hopes of researching treatment for the disease
under her tutelage.

“This bacteria has been a problem in honeybees for a long time,” Merrill
said. “It infects the larva when they’re teeny tiny. Even a few spores will
infect and they’ll start eating the larva from the inside out. It doesn’t
hurt the adult bees, but all of the sudden the bees can’t replenish the
population and the hive just collapses.”

When hives are infected, beekeepers generally treat their hives with
antibiotics. However, this is usually only a temporary solution. If the
bacteria returns, it will most likely develop to be resistant to the
antibiotics. From there, bee owners have the option to burn the hive or try
phage treatment.

Continue reading at Brigham Young University.
<http://news.byu.edu/archive14-oct-bees.aspx>

Bee image <http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-129600581.html> via Shutterstock.