Photo: Dixit Motiwala/Unsplash
Dalan Animal Health, a biotech company in Georgia, has received conditional approval from the US Department of Agriculture for the first vaccine for honeybees, and scientists say it could pave the way for controlling a range of viruses and pests. The vaccine protects honeybees from American foulbrood, an aggressive bacterium that can spread quickly. “There are millions of beehives all over the world, and they don’t have a good health care system compared to other animals,” said Dalail Freitak, Dalan’s chief science officer. “Now we have the tools to improve their resistance against diseases.” The vaccine is in royal jelly, a sugar feed given to queen bees, and is deposited in their ovaries so larvae have immunity as they hatch. Honeybees pollinate about one-third of all US food crops, and at least three-quarters of flowering plants need pollinators, including bees, butterflies and moths, to produce fruit and seeds. But bees are declining globally because of climate change, pesticides, habitat loss and disease.
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