Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff Works. Hey, brain stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vog obam here. You might have heard about how
Speaker 1: honey bees are doing poorly these days. It's different from
Speaker 1: the situation many of the world's vulnerable creatures find themselves
Speaker 1: in a small, obscure Amazonian tree frog, or even a
Speaker 1: gorgeous polar bear. We want these creatures to thrive and
Speaker 1: live their lives, but are we willing to change our
Speaker 1: lifestyles to make it happen. Would like to think so,
Speaker 1: but maybe not. The plummeting honey bee colony situation is
Speaker 1: a bit different, though, because if honey bees aren't flourishing,
Speaker 1: neither are people, and eventually people won't eat as a result.
Speaker 1: As honey bees go around collecting the nectar they want
Speaker 1: from plants, in the process, they disperse pollen from one
Speaker 1: plant to another, making it possible for those plants to
Speaker 1: bear fruit. Honey Bees aren't native to most of the
Speaker 1: places they live. Over the course of human history, we've
Speaker 1: carried insects from their native range in southern Europe, Africa,
Speaker 1: and the Middle East, two ecosystems all over the planet.
Speaker 1: At this point, they are the most successful pollinators in
Speaker 1: the world. And among the things they pollinate are a
Speaker 1: lot of our crops. The United States Department of Agriculture
Speaker 1: estimates that they pollinate about fifteen billion dollars worth of apples, peaches,
Speaker 1: and almonds every year in the United States alone. So
Speaker 1: when US beekeepers lose of their colonies, as happened in
Speaker 1: we twenty first century, humans not only take notice, we
Speaker 1: start frantically trying to fix the problem. Part of the problem, though,
Speaker 1: is that these losses, sometimes called colony collapse, don't have
Speaker 1: a singular route. Beekeepers call it the four pas por nutrition, pesticides, pathogens,
Speaker 1: and parasites, and so there's no silver bullet remedy. But
Speaker 1: the most promising immediate solution seems to be figuring out
Speaker 1: a way to prevent microbial disease, and that's where be
Speaker 1: vaccinations come in. Invertebrates, like US, vaccines work through stimulating
Speaker 1: the immune system to make antibodies against a particular disease.
Speaker 1: The vaccine immunizes the individual. Since invertebrates like bees don't
Speaker 1: make antibodies, scientists have long thought immunizing them would be impossible,
Speaker 1: but study discovered that bees transfer immunity to their offspring
Speaker 1: through protein called vitellogenin it's an ingredient in their egg yoke.
Speaker 1: Vaccinating a bee wouldn't help that bee, But if you
Speaker 1: vaccinated the queen of a hive, the only female that reproduces,
Speaker 1: she could pass her immunity onto her children and grandchildren
Speaker 1: through her eggs. The new vaccine will treat for American
Speaker 1: foul brood or a f B, a highly infectious and
Speaker 1: fatal disease that quickly devastates hives. The bacterium that causes
Speaker 1: it infects larva, and there's no cure. Once it's found,
Speaker 1: the hive must be destroyed. The bacteria are hardy too,
Speaker 1: They can form protective spores around themselves and thus survive
Speaker 1: dormant in a wide range of conditions for over fifty years,
Speaker 1: and wake themselves back up when they find themselves transferred
Speaker 1: via shared equipment, for example, to a new hive in
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds. In early nineteen hundreds, American foul brew
Speaker 1: decimated bee populations in the US. In some parts of
Speaker 1: the country, beekeepers who didn't immediately destroy infected colonies could
Speaker 1: be thrown in jail. The vaccine is in the testing
Speaker 1: phases and most likely headed for bee boxes near you,
Speaker 1: and don't worry. It doesn't require a tiny doctor's chair
Speaker 1: and an itty bitty needle to deliver the vaccine. The
Speaker 1: Queen Bee can drink the medicine in a little sugar
Speaker 1: water and passed along to her offspring. Today's episode was
Speaker 1: written by Jescelin Shields and produced by Tyler Klang. For
Speaker 1: more on this and lots of other buzzworthy topics, visit
Speaker 1: our home planet, how stuff works dot com