Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved the first bee vaccine to prevent Americanbrood, a deadly bacterial disease that can destroy bee colonies, officials said .
The USDA told CNN it issued a conditional license for the vaccine to Diamond Animal Health, the manufacturer that works with Dalan Animal Health, on Dec. 29.
“We hope the availability of this product will help prevent and/or treat American brood in honey bees due to their central role in U.S. agriculture (e.g., pollination),” the USDA said in a joint statement. by email.
On its official website, the Department’s Agricultural Research Service describes American brood disease as “one of the most widespread and destructive honey bee brood diseases.”
In a Jan. 4 statement, vaccine maker Dalan Animal Health said the primary treatment for Americanbrood is burning infected bees and hives, in addition to antibiotic treatment.
In the statement, Trevor Tauzer, owner of Tauzer Apiaries and a board member of the California Beekeepers Association, said, “This is an exciting step forward for beekeepers because we are relying on antibiotic treatments that have limited efficacy and require a lot of time and energy to devote to beekeepers Our hives.
“If we can prevent infections in our hives, we can avoid expensive treatments and focus our energies on other things that are important to keeping bees healthy,” he added.
Dalan chief executive Annette Kleiser described the vaccine in the statement as “a breakthrough in honeybee protection” and explained: “Global population growth and climate change will increase the importance of honeybee pollination to secure our food supply”.
“We are poised to change the way we care for insects, which is impacting food production on a global scale,” Kleiser added.
Unlike traditional vaccines, honey bees aren’t injected with a needle.
Instead, it’s mixed with “real forage,” which is ingested by worker bees, according to Dalan’s statement.
The worker bees incorporate the pollen into royal jelly, which is in turn fed to the queen bee.
Once the queen bee consumes the pollen-laden food, “parts of the pollen settle in her ovaries,” Dalan says, and the queen bee larvae are born immune to the disease.
The company said the vaccine will be available for purchase in the United States in 2023.
