AFB vaccine
- Thread starter Jhah
- Start date
Lets put some links in to make it easier
www.dalan.com
The Dalan Solution – Dalan Animal Health
Dalan’s unique bee vaccine technology is the only prophylactic solution to provide hive resistance to American Foulbrood and other dangerous bee diseases.
www.dalan.com
I still think our current, zero-tolerance approach is far superior to such a "vaccine". Even in a best case scenario where is works as they claim you would need to feed the vaccine to hives regularly (minimum every time you requeen). It will not remove reservoirs of AFB spores in a hive so in that regard has the same problem as antibiotics.
Very interesting stuff. Their website has lots of marketing fluff and not much science though, so I went and looked up their patents. It seems like the vaccine is deactivated AFB spores - they grow them in large quantities, concentrate them up, kill them with heat and pressure (autoclaved), and finally mix them with food to make them attractive to bees. Kind of similar to how some human vaccines are made.
Fascinating stuff. I'm not sure it would be practical in real life but it is amazing what people come up with. My main concern with the video itself is that the example used for roping AFB is extremely pale and not even the right consistency for AFB. The shots of infected brood show classic symptoms of a heavily infected hive and any infections would range from light chocolate to dark chocolate. I would go so far as to say I could muster up a healthy lavie and get a very similar result to what is shown. You do occasionally find a very newly infected cell that will be that colour but it is not common and not a good example.
I love zero tolerance, but that also needs 100% compliance.
AFB first recorded in NZ in 1877, and the action plan 1998…. Even I’m sceptical it’s going to work.
BUT, current practice controls the situation while science catches up. Although this vaccine may not be the solution, the science it generates may find it.
Best and cheapest practice is still beekeeper to learn what to look for and check regularly and deal with it ASAP,
Um, so honeybees (all insects) don't make antibodies, so I'd want a really good explanation for how this is supposed to work. Secondly, honeybees are already 'immune' to AFB. Only a specific developmental stage of young larvae can be infected, which may have something to do with way the peritrophic membrane forms, so I fail to how a 'vaccine' will be of use.
I'd be sending this to Mythbusters.
I’ve been thinking about how this might work (I still think it can’t – for beekeepers and AFB).
In the last 20 years there have been a few studies published about what has become known as ‘immune priming’ in invertebrates (in plants it’s called Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR)). It is still the subject of debate, and how it happens hasn’t been explained, but it’s not contested that these studies have found in a variety of animals, including bumblebee bees (and worms, some fish, fruit flies, sponges, blah, blah…), a ‘memory’ of a pathological challenge can persist, and make the response better the next time it happens. It suggests another kind of adaptive immunity, besides antibody/lymphocyte/ T-cell ‘memory’ like ours.
There is also evidence of what is called ‘trans-generational’ immune priming, and it’s in honeybees, for AFB. (see Trans-generational immune priming in honeybees, 2014, Trans-generational immune priming in honeybees | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences ). To make it work you’ll have to feed your queen (not the hive) heat-killed P. larvae bacteria (not spores).
Anyway, just proof it’s important to keep learning and not take things for granted…
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