Understanding COVID-19 from an exotic honey bee-disease perspective

This article compares the development of the highly infectious COVID-19 disease in humans with infections or infestations in honey bees. The importance of knowledge on the exotic nature of COVID-19 and each of its variants in providing a useful insight as to how it would be expected to develop, and in particular the expected reduction in its virulence over time, is also discussed.

Surveillance of Viruses in Varroa destructor Samples Collected from Honey Bee Colonies in Ontario, Canada, between 2015 and 2019

Varroa destructor parasitism is associated with extreme honey bee (Apis mellifera) colony losses in the northern hemisphere. Varroa destructor causes severe damage, including a decrease in bee longevity and immunosuppression, and acts as a vector for viruses, such as Deformed wing virus (DWV-A). The surveillance of viral pathogens in V. destructor samples is essential to assess risks of emerging virulent viral variants (such as VDV-1) and evaluate their impact on honey bee health. Thus, the objective of this study was to identify viral pathogens in V. destructor and honey bee samples collected in Ontario, Canada, from 2015 to 2019 with the use of metagenomics and real time PCR (qPCR). DWV-A and VDV-1 had the highest abundance of viral transcripts (7.5 log2 and 5.72 log2, respectively). Acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV) and Bee macula virus were also identified. Viral identification and quantification in V. destructor samples using metagenomics will facilitate the surveillance of viral pathogens. This surveillance technique will assist diagnostic laboratories in delivering timely and accurate diagnoses and risk assessments, which in turn will help honey bee producers to take adequate measures to mitigate the damage caused by V. destructor and associated viruses. [ FROM AUTHOR]

Can beekeeping improve mental wellbeing during times of crisis?

This paper examined how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected those interested in honey bees and the outdoors. It was investigated whether being outdoors and/or beekeeping has been a benefit to mental health using personal stories, examples from research, beekeeping groups, communities and the health service. The increase in online beekeeping teaching resources has helped bring knowledge about bees to perhaps a wider audience than previously, but training to become a beekeeper does need a certain hands-on element with beehives in an apiary setting. This is not just in order to gain confidence in handling bees, but also to learn from other beekeepers, and to bond in a social context. Although it is clear from the personal contributions to this article that beekeeping has helped immensely during the time of the COVID-19 crisis, more scientific research is needed to quantify the actual wellbeing effects. However, watching bees feeding on the flowers in gardens and parks is without doubt a pleasurable activity, and can be done by everyone.

Quarterly report of investigations of suspected exotic diseases: July to September 2021

Exotic pest and disease investigations are managed and reported by the Ministry for Primary Industries' (MPI's) Diagnostic and Surveillance Directorate. This article presents a summary of investigations of suspect exotic and emerging pests and diseases in New Zealand during the period from July to September 2021.

Bees can be trained to identify SARS-CoV-2 infected samples.

The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the need for the development of fast and reliable testing methods for novel, zoonotic, viral diseases in both humans and animals. Pathologies lead to detectable changes in the volatile organic compound (VOC) profile of animals, which can be monitored, thus allowing the development of a rapid VOC-based test. In the current study, we successfully trained honeybees (Apis mellifera) to identify SARS-CoV-2 infected minks (Neovison vison) thanks to Pavlovian conditioning protocols. The bees can be quickly conditioned to respond specifically to infected mink's odours and could therefore be part of a wider SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic system. We tested two different training protocols to evaluate their performance in terms of learning rate, accuracy and memory retention. We designed a non-invasive rapid test in which multiple bees are tested in parallel on the same samples. This provided reliable results regarding a subject's health status. Using the data from the training experiments, we simulated a diagnostic evaluation trial to predict the potential efficacy of our diagnostic test, which yielded a diagnostic sensitivity of 92% and specificity of 86%. We suggest that a honeybee-based diagnostics can offer a reliable and rapid test that provides a readily available, low-input addition to the currently available testing methods. A honeybee-based diagnostic test might be particularly relevant for remote and developing communities that lack the resources and infrastructure required for mainstream testing methods.

56th Congress of Veterinary Epidemiology

This proceedings contains 10 papers on risk management policy of the ministry of health, labour and welfare for ensuring safe wild game meat, prospective of application of food safety risk assessment for game meat, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) for animal owners, shelter medicine and COVID-19, the characteristics of bats as natural reservoirs of the novel coronavirus, chalkbrood in honey bees and its control measures, the economic impact of classical swine fever in Japan, benzalkonium chloride resistance in Listeria monocytogenes isolated in Japan, COVID-19 outbreak and epidemiological research in Japan and the amendment of the act on domestic animal infectious diseases control.

5th Congress of beekeeping and bee products with international participation, Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, November 2020

These proceedings contain a number of papers discussing current topics, from hives and beekeeping conditions, through the latest knowledge on good practice in pest control in agriculture through the quality of honey, its presence on the world market and control of counterfeiting to the health effects of honey and other bee products. Topics on COVID-19 are included from the aspect of the impact on beekeeping and the potential application of bee products in relieving the symptoms of the disease.

COVID-19 pandemic: impacts on bees, beekeeping, and potential role of bee products as antiviral agents and immune enhancers.

COVID-19 pandemic has passed to the front all the contradictions of the beekeeping sector: the valuable role of bee products as immune enhancers and antiviral agents and the impact that unsustainability of human activities has on bees' health and survival. The COVID-19 emergency led several countries to adopt severe restriction measures to contrast the infection. The lowering of industrial and commercial activities, transports, and the general lockdown had immediate consequences on the air quality, significantly improving environmental conditions. This had a positive impact on honeybees' life's quality. On the other hand, the bee and beehive transportation limitations threaten to hit food production by affecting the pollinator service, and this is particularly true in large, food-exporting countries like the USA and China where due to the few numbers of local bees, beekeepers import them by other countries and convey by truck hives for thousands of kilometers to pollinate crops. Furthermore, honeybee products, focusing on their natural pharmacological properties, can play an essential role as a potential natural contrast to the virus by enhancing the immunity defenses of both humans and animals, and their demand by consumers is expected to increase. Several researchers in the last months focused their attention on bee products to evaluate their effect in the cure of COVID-19 patients to ameliorate the symptoms or to contrast the coronavirus directly. This review reports these preliminary results.

Quality assessment of honey in three different geographical areas from Republic of Moldova

One of the empirical and image products of the Republic of Moldova is bee honey. Its assortment is due to the variety of landforms, as well as the diversity of flora specific to geographical regions. During the Covid-19 pandemic, domestic consumers had limited access to bee honey. This was caused by the restrictions imposed in order to organize fairs and agricultural markets which are one of the main sources for the purchase of bee products in the Republic of Moldova. At the same time, the analysis of trademarks in supermarkets highlighted the preferences of honey consumption as follows: polyfloral honey-28.57%, lime honey-20.40% and acacia honey-14.28%. In order to evaluate the quality of honey from small producers and highlight the specific characteristics of geographical areas, 60 samples were analyzed that included 3 types of honey: polyflora, sunflower and linden collected from 3 different geographic areas: Soroca area (North), area Ungheni (Center), Stefan Voda area (South). Honey samples were declared harvest of 2020. They were analyzed physico-chemically using methods provided by national and EU standards. The results obtained from the analysis of pollen in honey confirm the botanical origin declared by beekeepers and allowed to highlight the types of pollen specific to each area. Following the determination of qualitative indices: reaction with ethyl alcohol, with resorcinol;insoluble matter, cereal flour, gelatin and starch, it was found that the most inconsistencies were found in linden honey. Some indicators were close to the maximum permissible values specified in regulatory documents. The water content found in the honey samples was quite varied, and ranged from 16.05% +or- 0.11% to 19.89% +or- 0.13%, but these samples were within the limits of the standards. Total acidity ranged from 6.19 +or- 0.13 to 27.20 +or- 0.03 which falls within the established norms (up to 50.00 cm3 NaOH solution in (milliequivalents) per 100 g of honey). According to the SIE Lab space, all samples have a yellowish tint, this is indicated by positive values on the b* axis. However, honey samples from the southern region of Moldova showed the presence of greenish pollen, as evidenced by the reduced values on the a* axis. Our research reveals the quality level of honey from three different areas of the Republic of Moldova and the variation of quality parameters due to factors such as geographical region, climatic conditions, botanical origin and handling or storage conditions.

Bee products as a source of promising therapeutic and chemoprophylaxis strategies against COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2).

The emergence of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in 2019 in China marked the third outbreak of a highly pathogenic coronavirus infecting humans. The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread worldwide, becoming an emergency of major international concern. However, even after a decade of coronavirus research, there are still no licensed vaccines or therapeutic agents to treat the coronavirus infection. In this context, apitherapy presents as a promising source of pharmacological and nutraceutical agents for the treatment and/or prophylaxis of COVID-19. For instance, several honeybee products, such as honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, beeswax, and bee venom, have shown potent antiviral activity against pathogens that cause severe respiratory syndromes, including those caused by human coronaviruses. In addition, the benefits of these natural products to the immune system are remarkable, and many of them are involved in the induction of antibody production, maturation of immune cells, and stimulation of the innate and adaptive immune responses. Thus, in the absence of specific antivirals against SARS-CoV-2, apitherapy could offer one hope toward mitigating some of the risks associated with COVID-19.