APIS Volume 19, Number 3, March 2001
In this issue
- Fumagillin: The Material That Controls Nosema apis
- Bees and Genes: Sociogenomic Study Beyond the Beehive
- Propolis Price Increases: A Value-added Product Whose Time Has Come?
- Brazil: Honey Types Proliferate
- Water Crisis in Florida: Potential Bee Problems
FUMAGILLIN: THE MATERIAL THAT CONTROLS NOSEMA
The February 2001 issue of HiveLights (Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 14-15) published by the Canadian Honey Council <http://www.honeycouncil.ca/> contains an article on fumagillin’s manufacture and use by Heather Clay. This antibiotic is used to control nosema disease, called a "silent" killer," which is often ignored by beekeepers <http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/~mts/apishtm/apis94/apjul94.htm#4> in spite of evidence that it affects colony productivity <http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/~mts/apishtm/apis95/apdec95.htm#T4>. However, Ms. Clay says current marketing information suggests that in the United States, use of the material has increased because nosema disease (Nosema apis) is being more recognized as an added stress on colonies that also have parasitic mites.
According the Ms. Clay, the Canadian supply of fumagillin is produced in High River, Alberta by Medivet, and marketed as Fumagilin B®. She quotes Willie Baumgartner, Medivet’s owner, that fumagillin was originally patented by Upjohn, a pharmaceutical company (now apparently part of Pharmacia <http://www.pnu.com/>) in 1953. Since it had no apparent value for humans, it was not kept, and in 1957 Abbott Labs <http://www.abbott.com/> patented a product called Fumadil B® for treatment. The Hungarian company Chinoin infringed on the patent rights, but Abbott chose to use the company as a source of the material, rather than pursue patent infringement.
Medivet developed an improved product, which was more soluble, called Fumagilin B®, in the 1980s according to Ms. Clay. Chinoin was purchased by the French company Sunofi, according to Mr. Baumgartner (medivet@telusplanet.net), and later improved the fermentation technology and moved production from Hungary to India. Sunofi has given additional markets to Medivet, which now supplies the United States, Chile, New Zealand, Australia and Israel.
In the United States, Mid-Continent Agrimarketing, Inc. is the main source and sole national and international distributor for Fumidil-B® according to its catalog <http://www.mid-conagri.com/>. Other suppliers market the product under Mid-Con’s name. Ms. Clay concludes that a long list of drugs has been tested for treatment of nosema but so far nothing works as well as fumagillin, and the good news is that there has been no reported drug resistance of Nosema apis to the material.
According to an article by Dr. Ingemar Fries at the at the Department of Entomology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences <http://www.algonet.se/~beeman/research/nosema.htm>, the antibiotic fumagillin kills the active stages of nosema, but not the spores, and it's effect diminishes over time. Experiments show that even when fumagillin is administered both in the autumn and spring, infection levels might still be harmful. Wintering bees on clean or disinfected combs is therefore advisable with or without medication. A simple way to make combs free from viable nosema spores is to use acetic acid according to Dr. Fries. "A 60 percent solution can be used for this purpose, with approximately 2 ml per litre volume to be treated. The acid is put on top of a stack of boxes in an empty box that is closed with a lid. The acid is allowed to remain in an open container on the combs until it has evaporated or until the combs are to be used again."
Dr. H. Shimanuki in the 1992 edition of The Hive and Honey Bee, published by Dadant & Sons, Inc. (p. 1102) alternatively suggests 80 percent acetic acid and that after fumigation, equipment be aired at least two days, preferably a week before use. He also admonishes beekeepers that decontamination of equipment will be negated if beekeepers hive infected package bees or transfer infected bees on combs to treated equipment.
BEES AND GENES: SOCIOGENOMIC STUDY BEYOND THE BEEHIVE
Dr. Gene Robinson wrote an article in the December 2000 Bee Culture <http://bee.airoot.com/beeculture/> dedicated to the memory of his advisor, Dr. Roger A. Morse <http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/~mts/apishtm/apis_2000/apjun_2000.htm#4>. Billed as going "beyond the beehive," the article outlines a new approach to studying bee behavior. It is based on another article published in the American Scientist, Vol. 86: pp. 456-462, 1998) <http://www.sigmaxi.org/amsci/articles/98articles/robinson.html>. According to the abstract " Despite a long history of studying the behavior of honey bees, scientists know rather little the proximate causes behind a bee’s actions. Our author studies a variety of honey bee characteristics, which range from social to chromosomal factors. For example, he shows that a worker bee’s transition from working as a nurse in the hive to a forager in the field involves increasing levels of so-called juvenile hormone. In addition, he discovered that a region of a honey bee’s brain, called the mushroom bodies, increases in size while worker bees mature, perhaps in response to a bee’s spatial learning from foraging flights. Finally, Robinson describes ongoing work on genes that affect a honey bee’s rate of maturation. In the end, his work attempts to link the environmental and genetic factors that control a honey bee’s social behavior." The clock gene’s relation to foraging activity is also part of this impressive research repertoire, and described at some length in the Bee Culture article<http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/~mts/apishtm/apis_2001/apfeb_2001.htm#4>.
In a larger context, studying the genes of honey bees (genomics) will also help us understand the social behavior of other creatures, including ourselves, Dr. Robinson contends. It is "abundantly clear" that there are functional parallels between insects and vertebrates for the many genes involved in development of multicellular organisms. Studies in developmental biology, for example, have provided evidence of a gene that plays an important role in the development of the eye of both the fly and the mouse. This is remarkable as the eyes of insects and mammals were never considered related structures and work in different ways. The principal no doubt also applies to social behavior, and so it is reasonable to conclude that some genes identified in bees might also be important in vertebrate social behavior. This linking of genes and social behavior, Dr. Robinson calls "genomics."
To understand the function of any specific gene, the investigator must be able to manipulate its activity level and/or delete it entirely, Dr. Robinson says. This will be soon possible with many organisms, including honey bees. Thus, genetically modified honey bees may soon join the litany of other organisms (plants, insects, nematodes, bacteria) <http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/~mts/apishtm/apis99/apapr99.htm#3>. Honey bees are likely to play a large role in sociogenomic study because to understand the influences of nature and nurture, social organisms will be required. Emulating the fierce bee partisanship of most enthusiasts, including Dr. Morse, Dr. Robinson states there is no better creature than the honey bee for this kind of study. He concludes that Dr. Morse would have agreed and been delighted to see honey bees studied from this new perspective.
PROPOLIS PRICE INCREASES: A VALUE-ADDED PRODUCT WHOSE TIME HAS COME?
There have been a couple of reports that propolis prices are on the increase. The autumn 2000 edition of BEE BIZ (Number 12, pp. 28-29) reports that the material has soared to 150 New Zealand Dollars per kilogram (2.2 pounds). Comvita of New Zealand <http://www.comvita.com/product/propolis.html> reportedly is in desperate need of the material and all amounts produced by New Zealand beekeepers will be purchased at premium prices. According to Mr. Graeme Boyd, chief executive of the company, an annual scraping of propolis from a hive could significantly offset the costs of mite control
Heather Clay in the The February 2001 issue of HiveLights (Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 14-16) published by the Canadian Honey Council <http://www.honeycouncil.ca/> writes that propolis prices have increased two to three fold from six Canadian Dollars a pound in 1999 to a range of from 12 to as high as 20 in the year 2000. It turns out that removing the substance is more problematic than collecting it, according to Ms. Clay. Scraping frames and boxes yields little of the product, but a special hive insert encourages bees to collect the sticky stuff.
Ms. Clay describes what John Gates, British Columbia apiculture specialist demonstrated at the October BC Honey Producers Association meeting, an innovative propolis collection method developed in New Zealand. The collection material is windbreak/shade cloth, which comes in rolls 50 meters (164 ft) by 1 meter (3.28 feet). This will make 180 to 200 mats; mats are laid over the top bars and when strips of propolis have been deposited, the mat can be moved over one top bar width to expose other holes. The propolis is easy to remove by freezing, folding and rubbing the mat. The mats are reusable and become more attractive with use. For top feeding, a hole can be made in the mat for bees to access the feed. These will work on both nucs and full strength colonies.
Propolis come from the Greek pro = before, and polis = city, referring to its use in partially closing the entrance of a colony - the honey bee city. Ms. Clay lists some information about this biologically active material, including:
- a. A resinous gum gathered by bees from plant buds and bark.
- b. Contains approximately 55 percent resins and balms, 30 percent wax, 10 percent etheric oils and 5 percent pollen.
- c. Soft when warm (25-45 degrees C [77-113 degrees F]; brittle when cold (15 degrees C [59 degrees F]; melts at 65 degrees C [149 degrees F].
- d. Disolves in alcohol to make a tincture.
- e. Is the glue bees use to seal cracks and anchor hive parts.
- f. May have more than 35 flavonoids (anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-viral, anti-oxidizing) <http://www.nal.usda.gov/ttic/tektran/data/000011/50/0000115068.html>.
- g. Contains phenolics (anti-bacterial, anti-inflamatory) <http://www.orst.edu/food-resource/misc/phenolic.html>.
- h. Protects Vitamin C from being oxidized or destroyed.
The rise of propolis collection in Brazil in the 1990s may be responsible for much of the current interest in this material <http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/~mts/apishtm/apis97/apnov97.htm#3>. A search on any World Wide Web Search engine <http://www.google.com> will yield a large number of commercial sites selling products based on its medicinal properties. A complete treatment of propolis collection, preparation and use is found in Value-Added Products From Beekeeping by Dr. Rainer Krell (FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin No. 124: Rome 1996 <http://www.fao.org/docrep/w0076e/w0076e14.htm#5.1>. Additional information on the material is found in the Apitherapy Reference Data Base <http://www.sci.fi/~apither/bibbase/bibliography.html#Propolis>.
Propolis is complex stuff to begin with, and because it is collected by honey bees and not produced by them, it is extremely variable across geographic regions. Thus, to try to develop standards is a daunting task. A paper on "Standardization of Propolis: Present Status and Perspectives was recently published in Bee World (Vol. 81, 2000, No. 4, pp. 182-188). According to the authors from Bulgaria, V. Bankova and M. Marcucci, "A modern standardization of propolis should be based on plant sources." Characteristics might include: percentage of beeswax, insoluble residue, and contaminants. Volatility is useful, too, as it can determine product freshness. Biological and biochemical tests can also determine the potential activity of every batch. The approach they propose includes "systematic investigations of the chemistry and biological action of propolis in a great many regions of the world and is only possible with the joint efforts of many scientists, beekeepers, the public, national and international organizations, and governments." To my knowledge the only country with published regulations is Brazil. A recent post to Apitherapy-L from Eng. Paulo R. Reis de Oliveira <uniflora@olimpianet.com.br> elaborated on these particular standards. They are quite involved and how they are to be enforced is not clear from the post. Nevertheless, the interest and activity in this value-added product continue to increase and potential producers and users are well advised to keep up with events in this arena.
BRAZIL: HONEY TYPES PROLIFERATE
An article in Bee World by M. Cortopassi and D. Gelli (Vol. 81, 2000, No. 2, pp. 72-79) characterizes the many types of honeys that can now be found in one of the world’s largest countries. According to the article, Brazilian honey is mostly produced by Africanized honey bees, with a current production of some 30,000 tons per year. This honey can be divided into three types. Two are found in other parts of the world: that derived from flower nectars and another type that comes from sap-sucking insects, otherwise known as honeydew (melato). Perhaps the most famous melato, according to the authors, is produced during winter from bracaatinga (Mimosa scabrella, Mimosoideae). The third kind of honey is one that is not so widely described, exuded by plants or the result of pruning and harvesting, particularly sugar cane. This is called in the article molasses (melaçao). These three kinds of honey are often blended and a few honest-to-goodness sugarcane honeys are produced in small areas in São Paulo and Pernambuco states.
The latter products may raise many eyebrows. Honey produced from cane sugar (sucrose) is considered by most authorities not to be honey at all, but an "adulterated" product. That’s because nectar generally is associated with cotyledons, plants that have showy and prominent flowers. The other flowering plants are grasses, producing no nectar from flowers. These are monocotyledons. Both, however, are in the same group known as the anthophyta <http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/anthophyta/anthophyta.html>. As in other classification arenas, that of the anthophyta continues to evolve. Thus, so-called "fuzziness" in the definitions of Monocotyledonae and Dicotyledonae is a real phenomenon resulting from the shared ancestry of the two groups. It is now believed that some of the dicots are more closely related to monocots than to the other dicots <http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/glossary/gloss8/monocotdicot.html>. This has interesting repercussions concerning the "definition" of honey. Again, most authorities would agree that the monocots, corn and sugar cane, are not authentic sources of nectar from which bees elaborate honey. The Brazilian article, on the other hand, appears to legitimize the latter source.
Some time back, I wrote that the National Honey Board was in the process of defining honey <http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/~mts/apishtm/apis93/apnov93.htm#2>. The most recent document is dated June 15, 1996. According to it, "Honey is the substance made when the nectar and sweet deposits from plants are gathered, modified and stored in the honeycomb by honey bees. The definition of honey stipulates a pure product that does not allow for the addition of any other substance. This includes, but is not limited to water or other sweeteners." Brazilian sugarcane honey appears to fit this definition, whereas that containing corn syrup (usually added purposefully rather than produced by bees from HFCS or high fructose corn syrup ) does not. For a fuller picture of honey available in the United States, it is advisable to visit the National Honey Board Web site <http://www.nhb.org/download/factsht/techbroch.pdf>.
The article also discusses how honey is analyzed through microscopy to identify pollen grains, and by using physico-chemical studies, and both microbiological and sensory analysis. Most Brazilian honeys are multi-floral, originating from wild flowers and secondary forests and fields. Orange, eucalyptus, coffee and cashew make up the majority of unifloral honeys. Other analyses show that only 38.6 percent of Brazilian honey fits national and international legal standards. Invertase <http://genchem.chem.wisc.edu/demonstrations/Gen_Chem_Pages/23biochempage/breaking_down_sucrose_usin.htm> content and acidity are furthest from accepted standards. Microbiological analysis is a new research area in Brazil and is mostly concerned with detecting the causative organism for American foulbrood (Paenibacillus larvae), which has yet to afflict the country’s beekeeping.
Another active area is the increasing demand for Brazilian organic honey, for which certain rules have been set up by regulatory committee action. These stress organic production principles and the determination of acceptable level of contaminants in bee products, including chemicals associated with fertilization, soil conditioning and disease and pest control. Creation of the Southern Cone Common Market (MERCOSUL) has added a further set of rules and regulations for procedures used in both physio-chemical and microbiological analysis of honeys that Brazilian public health authorities will have to adapt to local standards. The article discusses some issues with respect to these. So-called melado honeys, for example, can be split into melaçao, for those originating from natural exudates (sugarcane) and melato, honeydew collected from sap-sucking insects. The Brazilian regulations specifically refer to honey produced by Apis mellifera (honey bees). However, there are at least a dozen other kinds of honeys produced by native stingless bees in the country. The proliferation of Brazilian honeys, therefore, is likely to continue well into the future. And the standards for many in all probability will have to be based on separate sets of criteria.
WATER CRISIS IN FLORIDA: POTENTIAL BEE PROBLEMS
A recent call set the tone. A lady was complaining that honey bees were watering at her bird bath. The only hives she had seen were about a quarter mile away and so she jumped to the conclusion the bees were from there and she wanted them out of the bird bath and the colonies relocated. Water is as important to honey bees as it is to other organisms <http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/~mts/apishtm/apis88/apmar88.htm#2>. Thus, an important rule of thumb is to provide some kind of watering device in or near the apiary, or the insects are likely to forage at nearby swimming pools and other sources <http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/~mts/apishtm/apis88/apmay88.htm#3>. The kicker in this instance is that the beekeeper had provided water in the apiary, but bees still visited the nearby bird bath.
A couple of articles in FloridaAgriculture, the Florida Farm Bureau’s publication (Vol. 60, No. 4, p. 4, April 2001) discusses the fact that Florida with the fourth largest state population is "wringing itself dry." The publication urges legislators and others to turn up the volume in describing Florida’s water problems, which are the consequence of a "200-year drought." The bottom line is that "in the absence of substantial rains, everyone is experiencing or will experience restrictions and higher costs." Unfortunately, many urbanites do not recognize the seriousness of the problem, according to the article, and continue to be profligate in their use. Thus, not only will they probably not understand agriculture’s need for the precious wet stuff when the going gets tough, but my guess is that we can also expect an increasing number of complaints when thirsty honey bees come a calling.
Sincerely,
Malcolm T. Sanford
Bldg 970, Box 110620
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-0620
Phone (352) 392-1801, Ext. 143 FAX: 352-392-0190
http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/~mts/apishtm/apis.htm
INTERNET Address: MTS@GNV.IFAS.UFL.EDU
©2001 M.T. Sanford "All Rights Reserved"
