Honey Bees News

A collaboration between researchers of three universities in Sweden led to very interesting findings that have been published in the scientific journal called PLoS ONE. What were these findings about and why can there be a link with antibiotics?

In fact, it was discovered that honey bees possess inside their stomachs a lot of healthy lactic acid bacteria. These bacteria may be beneficial for the health of honey bees.

Similarly, a post on the Swedish site slu.se presents the following:

Honey bees possess an abundant, diverse and ancient lactic acid bacteria microbiota in their honey crop with beneficial effects for bee health, defending them against microbial threats.

Furthermore, it seems that this natural defense that honey bees have is already being used in the creation of honey. Effectively, it is believed that when honey bees collect the nectar and the pollen, harmful microorganism are contained in these products from flowers. However, these harmful microorganisms are removed by the bacteria inside the honey bees’ stomachs. Accordingly, a release by the University of Lund mentions:

The researchers have also seen that large quantities of harmful microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts and fungi are found in the nectar and pollen that the bees collect from flowers to make honey and bee bread. These microorganisms could destroy the food through fermentation and mould in just a couple of hours, but in fact, the healthy bacteria in the honey stomach kill all the microorganisms.

Nevertheless, a very important point derived from the work of the researchers is that honey bees that are treated with antibiotics may have this natural line of defense deteriorated. Effectively, the article quoted earlier also states that:

The bees have their own defense system against disease in the form of cooperative healthy bacteria. However, this system is weakened in commercially farmed bees that are treated with antibiotics, suffer stress, eat synthetic food instead of their own honey and bee bread and are forced to fly in fields sprayed with pesticides.

Consequently, with the need to face, if possible, the colony collapse disorder it may be advantageous for beekeepers to know about the fact that treating bees with antibiotics is not necessarily helping them.

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Researchers have found that when honey bees are faced with a fungal infection they use propolis to fight the fungus. What is propolis? Propolis is a mixture of plant resign and wax that honey bees may use as lining inside the hive. However, while this substance may not be appreciated by beekeepers because it can make it more difficult to open the hive, researchers have found that propolis has antibacterial and antifungal properties.

Effectively, when honey bees are faced with a fungal infection they may significantly increase the amount of propolis brought to the hive. Effectively, Jennifer Welsh of LiveScience writes in an article the following:

The researchers found that when facing a fungal threat the bees brought in 45 percent more of the waxy creation to line their hives, and physically removed fungally-infected larvae from their area.

Nonetheless, the fact that bees brought in more propolis is not the main element proving that this natural product had antifungal properties. In fact, it was remarked that the infection was reduced after the use of propolis. Similarly, Lans in an article published on the site IndiaTimes.com mentioned that:

Researchers know propolis is an effective antifungal agent because they lined some hives with a propolis extract and found that the extract significantly reduced the rate of infection.

Furthermore, honey bees appeared to be able to distinguish sometimes a fungus that was harmful to another one that wasn’t. To illustrate this point, it can be read in an article published on the HuffingtonPots.com by Jennifer Welsh that:

The bees were even aware of which fungi were harmful and which weren’t. When infected with fungus that didn’t cause disease, the bees didn’t ramp up their propolis deposition in response.

This being, the propolis seemed to be limited in defending the colony against pathogenic bacteria as noted on a domain-b.com webpage:

Honey bee colonies infected with pathogenic bacteria did not bring in significantly more propolis – despite the fact that the propolis also has antibacterial properties. ”There was a slight increase, but it was not statistically significant,” Simone-Finstrom says.

Thus here is more information on how interesting honeybees are. It appears that they have very good reflexes against fungal infection that could help us better understand the world more.

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