
Engineered symbionts activate honey bee immunity and limit pathogens - ghostoftiber
https://www.technologynetworks.com/immunology/news/engineered-bacteria-could-bee-saviors-330179
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kpgraham
As a beekeeper who loses half his hives every year, I can definitely say that
Colony collapse is caused by varroa mites. You can easily see them on the
bees. I have tried all kinds of treatments for varroa.I don't want to argue
with those who are convinced that pesticides cause colony collapse, but I am
certain, for me, it is varroa.

I am waiting for this treatment is available. I spend a thousands of dollars a
year to restock my bees.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
Could it be that the colony is less able to handle pressure from varroa
because of other stresses, like pesticides? We use several methods in
combination to deal with the varroa.

If a colony has too much after the winter we treat with ApiGuard, and the
honey produced during the period is marked for winter feed. We do drone larvae
cutting (not sure that is the terminology used) and treat with oxalic acid
before the winter. We let them winter on at least 50% honey.

We have lost one colony in the last four winters, that was wintering on sugars
alone. We overwinter three four colonies normally. So we are just hobbyists
and our methods may not scale.

~~~
raxxorrax
Some have argued that taking honey and replacing it with sugared water is bad
for the bees immune system and general health. There was a very small scale
study if you even can call it that, but I cannot find the article about it
anymore.

Since taking honey hasn't been this deadly before, some form of infection
seems plausible and the mites would fit here. As far as I know they are
primarily feeding on fat reservoirs of bees. Are there any signs of varroa on
the dead colonies?

~~~
nicoburns
> Some have argued that taking honey and replacing it with sugared water is
> bad for the bees immune system and general health

It'd be pretty hard to believe that it wasn't bad for the bees health.

~~~
Nasrudith
The real question is how different is it from true nectar. They produce honey
by preserving nectar in the first place. Of course even if they were given
true nectar as a replacement directly (an ironic subversion of their job) it
could theoretically cause issues from not being properly "preprocessed" or
lacking the lead time to make a batch for their own consumption.

Just because sugar water isn't a good basis for humans doesn't neccessarily
apply to bees - giving a cat a salad is not healthy for them and they will
probably not be happy.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
Honey contains lactic acid bacteria [1], which has proven to work as an
antibiotic agent in scientific test[2]. Suger do not have that. Honey contains
many other things, like pollen, that suger doesn’t.

[1]
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S094450131...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0944501310000042)

[2] (In Swedish) [https://kurera.se/mjolksyrabakterier-i-farsk-honung-
kanske-m...](https://kurera.se/mjolksyrabakterier-i-farsk-honung-kanske-mer-
effektivt-an-antibiotika/)

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wiremaus
Neonicotinoid pesticides are the likely culprit. Companies that produce them
have been sinking large sums of money into studies that search for alternative
explanations, and responses that don't simply consist of eliminating neonics.

[https://theintercept.com/2020/01/18/bees-insecticides-
pestic...](https://theintercept.com/2020/01/18/bees-insecticides-pesticides-
neonicotinoids-bayer-monsanto-syngenta/)

~~~
ars
France banned those pesticides more than a year ago, but their rates of colony
collapse did not go down, if anything they went up.

So neonicotinoid pesticides are probably ruled out as the culprit.

~~~
jacobwilliamroy
The replacement is probably just as bad. I've seen industrial scale pesticide
application in the U.S. Doesn't matter what you're spraying, it's going to
cause Problems in the quantities that they use.

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Covzire
From listening to talks by Paul Stamets, it sounds like there might be a
correlation between colony collapse disorder and lack of fungi / destruction
of the old growth forest in a given area, a place where sensitive fungi can
grow and thrive. Bees feed on mycellium/fungi, the fungi suppresses other
bacteria, at least as far as I understand it. I wonder how much that's been
tested by actual beekeepers.

~~~
ghostoftiber
Post a link?

~~~
filoeleven
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32194-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32194-8)

From the abstract: “Extracts from amadou (Fomes) and reishi (Ganoderma) fungi
reduced the levels of honey bee deformed wing virus (DWV) and Lake Sinai virus
(LSV) in a dose-dependent manner. In field trials, colonies fed Ganoderma
resinaceum extract exhibited a 79-fold reduction in DWV and a 45,000-fold
reduction in LSV compared to control colonies.”

Stamets has tons of talks on YouTube, a lot of them have the same content in
them and anything after 2016 might have the bee story in it.

Looks like he plans to start selling these feeders this year, which is good
news!

[https://fungi.com/pages/bees](https://fungi.com/pages/bees)

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jacobwilliamroy
Is this gene drives? Do inoculated bees behave differently or make a different
honey? Does it only affect one species of bee? How many species are they going
to test? Did they examine bees over the entire life cycle, or just adults?
Does this bacteria occupy an existing niche?

~~~
jryb
They did not use gene drives. Also, no one uses gene drives in applications,
except to study gene drives explicitly.

------
jacobwilliamroy
USE LESS PESTICIDES AND THE BEES WILL COME BACK FFS

~~~
tehjoker
Details here: [https://theintercept.com/2020/01/18/bees-insecticides-
pestic...](https://theintercept.com/2020/01/18/bees-insecticides-pesticides-
neonicotinoids-bayer-monsanto-syngenta/)

