Honey bees: a bacterium saves them from malnutrition

There are many factors that affect the life of bees, those precious insects that pollinate while protecting biodiversity. Some of these factors include habitat loss, rising temperatures, intensive farming and overuse of chemical pesticides.

These insects are at risk of not having enough food to survive each day. They need pollen from a wide variety of flowers and plants, but due to the green areas that have been converted to monocultures, this is not possible.

All this has serious consequences for the lives of bees. Here, however, that the University of Indiana, in America, has discovered a certain bacterium with its researchers. It, if given to the larvae of honeybeesmay reduce nutritional stress in growing bees.

The larvae manage to live thanks to the nutrition of the largest, with royal jelly along with nectar and flower pollen. She who becomes queen bee will eat royal jelly until she dies. The other employees are on a pollen diet.

Over there royal jelly it has strong antimicrobial properties due to the presence of acidity and peptides. For example, bacteria that are exposed to royal jelly largely die. This is not happening with the bacteria just discovered by scientists.

Bombella APIs, or rather the bacteria with its scientific name, it would be the only one that can survive and multiply in royal jelly. Plus, it makes it more nutritious for the larvae with its amino acids that help evolving bees fight nutritional stress.

The study suggests that the bacteria could really make a difference in bees’ diets. In addition, it can help beekeepers to counteract the disadvantages of poor nutrition for the health of honeybees.

Scientists confirm that the bacterium can survive for more than a day in sugar water. This facilitates administration for beekeepers through the integration of the probiotic Bombella apic in the diet of bees in liquid form.