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Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees
- blooalien 3mo agoSome potentially seriously good news there if it all pans out the way it sounds like it might. Fingers crossed for the bees!
- shevy-java 3mo agoThis assumes the mites are what kills the bees. What is that asssumption is flawed?
- fodkodrasz 3mo agoNah, it cannot happen that Big Agro's poisons are to fault...
- niksmather 3mo agoPesticides are bad for bees, but Varroa is too. Until Varroa arrived in Australia the bees there didn't suffer from colony collapse, despite high pesticide use.
- EdwardDiego 3mo agoBig Ag was already using those poisons before varroa, so if it was the cause, you would've seen it manifest before varroa.
- somenameforme 3mo agoIt seems that varroa were first discovered in North America in 1987. [1] Glyphosate use at that time was around 4,500 metric tons. By 2014 we were up to 125,000 metric tons [2]. There was an exponential increase coming after 1996 when glyphosate resistant GMO crops became a thing. I don't have an opinion on this topic one way or the other, but there seem to be quite a lot of negative correlates since then, and this is just another one. Of course correlation doesn't mean causation, but you can't completely dismiss it. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa [2] - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5044953/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5044953/
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- EdwardDiego 3mo agoThen all the scientists who study apiary are wrong and someone in the HN comments knows better than all of them. Congratulations, I look forward to your Nobel prize.
- thin_carapace 3mo agowhile mites are evidently the ultimate cause of bee death in this scenario, i implicate humans due to their widespread enabling of mite destruction. https://academic.oup.com/jinsectscience/article/24/3/20/7683866 https://academic.oup.com/jinsectscience/article/24/3/20/7683...
- somenameforme 3mo agoThere's a rather large body of evidence that herbicides, glyphosate in particular, are, at the minimum, contributing to the bee collapse. You can find a ton of studies on the topic - here [1] is a random one that overviews some of the literature, though it's already quite dated. It doesn't kill them, but wrecks their gut biome and causes numerous issues that contribute to colony collapse. It also significant but, as of yet, unclear negative effects on the human gut biome. Humanity goes through seemingly endless cycles of poisoning ourselves: lead, cigarettes, leaded fuel, asbestos, CFCs, and countless others. It's highly improbable that this trend has ended. During each of these cycles is there tends to be science claiming something is safe when it ultimately turns out not to be. In part this is due to ignorance/arrogance, but it's also because those who earn a paycheck driven by these issues have a strong motivation to 'prove' that it's safe, especially when it's not. [1] - https://e360.yale.edu/features/bee-alert-is-a-controversial-herbicide-harming-honeybees https://e360.yale.edu/features/bee-alert-is-a-controversial-...
- applicative 3mo agoI had though that glysophate-blaming was dying out now the principal glysophate producer is the Chinese state.
- blooalien 3mo agoThis assumes no such thing at all (as I'm clearly no expert on bees), but it does assume that literal parasites cannot possibly be a good thing for the bees, and anything that genuinely helps the bees is a net plus for us all.
- roboben 3mo agoThe hard truth these days is that the work of bee keeping is like 80% keeping the mites in check. Plus all current treatments render the honey inedible so you can only do it at the end of the season.
- shevy-java 3mo agoNo. The mites are not what is killing the bees. And, by the way - natural pathogens exist in just about any population. These very, very rarely led to extinction. There is a media trend to claim the mites are at fault. This reminds me of prior fault yielding e. g. "mad cow disease" - and then the media also stopped doing any further investigation at that point. It's as if they have break points where you can not go past those points. Now it is the mites that get blamed.
- MrLeap 3mo agoLotta unsubstantiated claims you're making there.
- kelseyfrog 3mo agoThe negative government prior is unusually attractive.
- bobmcnamara 3mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations
- wizzwizz4 3mo agoPeople who believe these types of things tend to get their information from the same places. Which podcasts do you listen to?
- mrweasel 3mo agoThere is a valid point though. All types of insects are in decline, but the decline in bees is exclusively due to varroa? It's not unreasonable to assume that at least part of the decline in bees is due to the same conditions that results in less butterflies, beetles, dragonflies and so on. The removal of habitats suitable to insects and modern farming certainly plays a part as well. Honeybees deal fairly well with pesticides, wild bees doesn't[1], but none of them can deal with losing habitats. 1) https://www.biavl.dk/medlemmer/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Bier-og-spr%C3%B8jteskader_2018.pdf https://www.biavl.dk/medlemmer/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Bi... (In Danish).
- shevy-java 3mo agoStill the honeybees keep on dying ... Perhaps it is time to stop blaming the mites for the decline of the honeybees.
- mrweasel 3mo agoThe Danish beekeeping association has a list of their top four reasons for declining bee populations (both honeybees and wild bees). None of them are mites. Multiple experiments and analysis of abandoned beehives show time and time again that the bees will develop coping mechanisms against varroa mites if we let them. All four reasons are linked to a decline habitats suitable for bees. * Lose of natural habitats. * Fertilization close to natural habitats causes grass to grow and outcompete bee friendly plants. * Herbicides are killing flowers. * Pesticides hurt wild bees (honeybees to a less extend). What is killing bees more rapidly than anything is modern farming. When you see farmers, especially those in the US, needing to truck around bees it should be abundantly clear that something has gone very wrong. Massive fields and orchards with a single crop is no place for a bee, they simply have no food for the majority of the year. What do we expect bees to do with 50 acres of corn or wheat? To a bee that might as well be a desert.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- lostlogin 3mo agoHave you got any experience with beekeeping?
- aussieguy1234 3mo agoSo what's it going to do to the honey? Will we have spider venom laced honey?
- mjmas 3mo agoProbably, but not at any meaningful concentration.
- hyperionultra 3mo agoAs article suggest - it is fully biodegradable. I suppose venom has some short half-life. And since peptide is isolated, not full chain toxin, it should be harmless to humans.
- karlkloss 3mo agoA lot of people might become allergic to honey, and never know why.
- schainks 3mo agoHoneybees are not native to North America. It is great and currently necessary we use them the way we do. It makes one wonder in the age of AI and evolving farm practices, can we start finding ways to cultivate already-climate-adapted native bees to do the work? Can we leverage adaptations for specific crops? I get it that honeybees work great at pollinating monoculture fields, etc., but that does not change the fact we are perpetuating a square peg in round hole problem and pushing it very very far right now, at greater and greater cost, all while climate change is fighting us.
- halflife 3mo agoIf they are not native, how did plant propagate seeds? Flies? Wasps? Butterflies?
- EdwardDiego 3mo agoNative bees. Apis mellifera are introduced bees across most of the world. But yes, there are other pollinators like butterflies, moths, flies, birds, etc.
- halflife 3mo agoMakes sense, thanks!
- Jedd 3mo agoAmusingly, propagate has a horticultural, and non-horticultural meaning, and it's not obvious which one you're using there, because the bee's role is long over by the time the seed is ready to go out into the world. Pollen can be carried (as noted by sibling and you) by lots of different insects, and there's myriad solitary and other (by conventional standards) weird bee species around, plus lots of plants are happy to pollinate themselves (tomato is a good example) or rely on wind (corn/maize is the famous example there). When the common honeybee landed in the continental USA, about four centuries ago, the same people also brought in lots of (other) european plant species that had co-existed with Apis mellifera for millennia.
- tamimio 3mo agoKinda related, but in my house I don’t kill spiders, as long as they are in the corners they can live rent free while cleaning other bugs. Before, one time I went and killed all of them, in less than a week I started seeing sliverfish and similar bugs, I realized I messed up the natural order, so I just keep em now!
- brikym 3mo agoI leave the wolf spiders as they don't make webs.
- taneq 3mo agoIn my old house we sprayed for spiders and ants, and a few weeks later there were cockroaches everywhere. I guess it was just a coincidence. >.>
- tamimio 3mo agoHaha, the problem with ants is they are not solo, and they build colonies so if you keep “the explorer” one alive soon you will have hundreds of them, digging walls and floors.
- Coneylake 3mo agoAnother terrible MCU spin-off
- tomaytotomato 3mo agoCheck out Paul Stamets' research using Mycelium to give honeybees an immuneboost. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32194-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32194-8
- thatspartan 3mo agoTIL that the Star Trek Stamets character is based on a real world Paul Stamets working on actual Mycelium. Wow
- dreamcompiler 3mo agoAnd Anthony Rapp (the actor who plays him) went through some awful stuff that made him famous for another reason and he seems to have come out stronger. Good for him. As for the whole mycelium plot in Discovery, I found it so ridiculous that I refuse to consider that show canon.
- veonik 3mo agoThere’s far worse problems with Discovery ;) but really, much of Trek is ridiculous: “we went really fast around a sun and traveled back in time to _exactly_ when we need to be.” Convenient!
- dreamcompiler 3mo agoOh of course. Mycelium is just the tip of the iceberg e.g. "Spock had a secret sister." Oh come on! Yes some Trek scripts are better than others, as are some entire shows. But the creators of Disco seemed like they had never watched a single episode of "real" Trek or understood what made it work.
- ghostbrainalpha 3mo agoI thought he lost the case?
- temp0826 3mo ago
- benbojangles 3mo agoOne day bees will evolve to produce spider venom
- mrweasel 3mo agoAsian bees are perfectly capable of removing and killing mites as is. So are some breed species of European honey bees. There have been found abandoned apiary in France where the bees have evolved to groom themselves and remove the mites. The bees does need to evolve, but not to the point of producing venom. Mechanical mite removal works equally well.
- speed_spread 3mo agoI was rather thinking of bees developing the ability to shoot tiny lasers to cook the mites off like popcorn. Or maybe a static discharge from their wings rubbing together, like a natural taser.
- roboben 3mo agomite popcorn with fresh honey sounds like a three star dish for $67
- onesandofgrain 3mo agoHow did they screen for this venom?
- throwaway2037 3mo agoToo lazy to read an article that takes about one minute? Sheesh. > “We screened 50 venoms, mostly from spiders and scorpions, by applying them externally to the mites,” says Herzig. > “We found more than 75% killed the mites within 24 hours. We selected 2 of the most potent spider venoms for further analysis.”
- Luckyemmet 3mo agoGenuinely thought this was a new marvel character lol
- chasil 3mo agoPowdered sugar is the standard treatment for removing varroa mites that have emerged from capped cells. "The peptides killed only the mites, while the bees survived." What benefits do these new treatments offer? They certainly won't be cheaper. https://www.honeybeesuite.com/can-powdered-sugar-control-varroa-mites/ https://www.honeybeesuite.com/can-powdered-sugar-control-var... Edit: "Treatments every week killed more mites than treatments every two weeks, which killed more mites than treatments every month... The only treatment schedule that effectively suppressed mites over long periods was once per week... sugar dusting has been found to significantly reduce adult mite populations at times when little brood is present."
- m4x 3mo agoThere currently isn't a effective treatment for varroa that doesn't also kill the hive. It is not a solved problem, and there is certainly room for more research in this space.
- lavela 3mo agoI am pretty sure I read that Bees would be capable of taking care of mites themselves, but taking away their honey puts them in constant food stress, thus suppressing that behavior, and compresses the colony thus increasing mite density. Can't find a proper study right now though.
- bspammer 3mo agoThe article you linked lists a bunch of downsides to powdered sugar: it doesn’t kill the mites it just encourages the bees to brush them off, it has reduced effectiveness when it’s humid, it doesn’t work on mites that aren’t actively on a bees body, and it has to be applied regularly.
- lostlogin 3mo agoAnd it won’t worked on capped brood, so you have to dust them repeatedly.
- lostlogin 3mo ago
- mjanx123 3mo agoIIRC the Asian honey bee is more resilient to mites
- CommonGuy 3mo agoYes, they remove the mites if they detect them. Asian honey bee colonies usually do not collapse from varroa mites. But since European honey bees produce much more honey, the are the prefered species and used worldwide
- worldvoyageur 3mo agoI grew up on a farm on which the apiary and all connected with it was a major part of the farm's output. Honey, beeswax, nukes (a queen and 10K or so worker bees as a starter colony, sold to other apiaries in the spring if they'd had too many winter losses), fertilizing services (drop a couple colonies off at a berry farm after dark, pick the colonies up two weeks later, profit!) and other products. It's been over ten years since I spent any serious time with bees, but the bees themselves did a great job on the varroa mites. Sentinel bees at the hive entrance would pick the mites off the incoming bees. The problem was if the colony had a solid floor the mites would just climb back onto the next bee that passed nearby. If the solid colony floor was replaced with a mesh, the mites would fall through to the ground below while the bees could still go about their business. We would still sometimes treat for varroa, but making it easier for the bees to handle varroa how they had evolved to was the first line of defence. This was Canada, regular Italian bees, hard winter kills of whatever wasn't properly winterized.
- ct0 3mo agoThere is recent article from scientific beekeeper that goes into detail about these using their own venom as a cleaning agent.
- andai 3mo agoFascinating, thanks. What does winterization involve? I looked it up online but there's a whole bunch of different information. Also how cold does it get?
- worldvoyageur 3mo agoA typical winter day would be a high of -6 Celcius and a low of -20, but there would be cold snaps of -20 or colder. Winterization itself was several things. 1. In late fall we'd make sure each colony had enough honey to fuel them through to spring (a quick lift would tell you). If short, we'd put sugar saturated water in a tray on top of the colony. The bees would move the sugar into the colony and a couple days later we'd take out the bone dry trays. Failing to ensure enough fuel meant certain death for the colony, though for some in the trade the math was that it was cheaper to buy nukes (a colony nucleus of a queen and some workers) in the spring. Our math was that We liked to have strong colonies in the spring to sell nukes. 2. A bee colony is basically a rectangular box sitting on a frame. We had rectangular insulation that stored flat but easily expanded to slide over each colony before the first snow. The colonies would get buried in snow, which was excellent extra insulation. 3. The bees themselves did the work to survive the winter. They'd huddle in a ball, burning honey to generate heat (a bee could heat itself to something like 40 degrees C), fanning their wings to spread the heat. The bees in the centre of the ball would move out to the periphery while those on the periphery would move into the center. A cold snap that lasted too long was a disaster as the bees would tighten the ball for greater warmth and then run out of honey within the ball. Those colonies would die. In the spring you'd find the tightly clustered ball of bees, dead, surrounded by honey not that far outside the ball. You needed at least one brief warming period in a cold snap in which the ball of bees would expand, find a new patch on unconsumed honey in the hive and then recontract around the honey. If we did our work properly in the fall, we'd have 90% or more of our colonies make it to spring, most strong so we could make nukes to replace our losses and sell on the extras.
- skeeter2020 3mo agowe're going to need a lot of very tiny syringes and band-aids!
- eleveriven 3mo agoSpider venom saving bees was not on my bingo card, but this is genuinely cool. Obviously "works on mites in the lab" is a long way from "works safely and cheaply in a real hive", but varroa is such a nasty problem that even a new direction is worth paying attention to
- danteocualesjr 3mo ago[dead]
- baerbelblue 3mo ago[flagged]