Using Prophylactics for Preventing Honey Bee Diseases

Is there a need for vaccination against American foulbrood?

Katrin Sonnleitner and Dr. Johannes Wirz; translation and photo by Martin Kunz

Whenever a study financed by the pharmaceutical industry is published, it is brought with great energy to attention globally. This is what happened with the news about a vaccine aiming to immunise bee colonies against American foulbrood (AFB).

The "oral vaccination" was carried out in a laboratory experiment as follows: Bees were fed sugar water with dead foulbrood bacteria (Paenibacillus larvae). These bees were then locked into a cage together with a queen for some time. The dead bacteria now also was in the royal jelly, which the workers started feeding to the queen, and eventually they found their way into the queen's eggs. The larvae that developed from these eggs were then infected with foulbrood bacteria, and in the laboratory trials it was found that their mortality was reduced to 30-50 per cent; field trials are being planned. The media reports that are now reporting an "approval for a foulbrood vaccination" actually only refer to an approval for field trials, not the vaccine itself.

Lay readers are in awe, and some amateur beekeepers may even be delighted. Those who breed queens may even sense a new business with the sale of "immunised" queens. Hopes for a vaccine are likely to resonate above all in those beekeepers who extract all the honey from their colonies and then feed them refined sugar for the winter, which is of little use to the bees (apart for the calorific value of its sucrose). "With a teaspoon of sugar!" would be Mary Poppins’ comment.

In bee appropriate beekeeping circles we ask instead the following question: How do bees take care of their health in the context of nature? Studies have shown, for example, that feeding sunflower honey to bees and their larvae reduced their infection rate with Nosema and European foulbrood (sour brood), and feeding acacia honey reduced infection with American foulbrood by at least the same factor as the new vaccine. Honeys with proportions of different flowering plants were equally effective. Furthermore, feeding experiments showed that bees preferred the "correct" honey depending on the pathogenic bacteria. Honey from a variety of sources is therefore not only food for the bees, but also ’medication’.

Therefore, those who leave their bees as much of their own honey as possible, at the same time provide them with an independent, natural prophylaxis against fatal bee diseases, which also happens to be less costly for the beekeeper while being just as effective as a man-made vaccine.

Furthermore: The actual approval of such a vaccination is a long way offat least for Germany!

Above: food variety - an important factor in self-mediation!

Authors

Katrin Sonnleitner: Leitung Initiative Wesensgemäße Bienenhaltung; Mellifera e.V.

Dr Johannes Wirz, former co-director of the Natural Science Section at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland and board member Mellifera e. V.

Bibliography

Dickel F, Bos NMP, Hughes H, Martín-Hernández R, Higes M, Kleiser A and Freitak D (2022) The oral vaccination with Paenibacillus larvae bacterin can decrease susceptibility to American Foulbrood infection in honey bees—A safety and efficacy study. Front. Vet. Sci. 9:946237. https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.946237

Gherman, B.I., Denner, A., Bobiş, O. et al. Pathogen-associated self-medication behavior in the honeybee Apis mellifera . Behav Ecol Sociobiol 68, 1777–1784 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-014-1786-8

Erler S, Denner A, Bobiş O, Forsgren E, Moritz RF. Diversity of honey stores and their impact on pathogenic bacteria of the honeybee, Apis mellifera. Ecol Evol. 2014 Oct;4(20):3960-7. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1252. Epub 2014 Sep 26. PMID: 25505523; PMCID: PMC4242578.

Further reading (in German only)

Hrsg. Niedersächsische Landesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit (LAVES): Einordnung der AFB-Impfung und der zugehörigen Studie Dr. Johannes Wirz im Mellifera-Blog über Zuckerfütterung und Bienengesundheit

Bigna Zellwegers Vortrag „Das diverse Immunsystem der Honigbienen und was der Mensch damit zu tun hat“ im Rahmen der von FreeTheBees organisierten Bienenkonferenz „Bienen ohne Grenzen“