Steve Pearce wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> someone recently was mentioning the bee immune system, and in the absence of any comment from the
> list assumed that bees don't have one, and that any resistance is therefore genetically determined.
>
> Most of what is known on insect defences has been discovered in the fruit fly Drosophila
> melanogaster
>
> in 1972 Boman found that a vaccine prepared from dead Enterobacter cloacae protected flies against
> a subsequent injection of live bacteria. These flies also showed cross-resistance to Pseudomonas
> aeriginosum.
>
> In the silkmoth immunity involves the induction of a number of bacteriocidal proteins, cecropins
> and attacins, that protect the individual from a subsequent challenge of virulent bacteria.
>
> If this is similar in the honeybee then it shows that although the battery of defence mechanisms
> will be determined genetically, these mechanisms are not expressed all the time, and therefore
> there must be a certain scope for an individual colony to aquire resistance, to a given infection,
> even after being knocked down, by the initial infection.
>
> The details above are quoted (not exactly) from Ashburner "a laboratory handbook"
>
> Hope this stimulates discussion, and please note I am a plant biologist with little knowledge in
> the entomological field (but it is growing)
>
> best wishes
>
> Steve Pearce
> Scotland
 
My thanks to Steve for correcting me on the immunity question.  My reason for doubting this was the short
lifespan of worker bees.  However in order to exist on this planet it seems necessary to have some sort of
immune system and since bees have been around for a lot longer than us it would seem strange that they did not
possess one.
Brother Adam has a page on Resistance and Immunity in his book Breeding the Honeybee in which he says
"Immunity can be hereditary but an artificial immunity can also be effected through vaccination.  Obviously
there is no question of vaccination in the case of the honeybee, but there is probably an innate immunity
regarding two diseases, paralysis and sac brood"
Prof. Ruttner in his book on Queen rearing has a paragraph on the last page on Innoculation Method in which he
describes a method of innoculating a queen bee.
If you put these two together it would even seem possible to vaccinate a queen bee.I would expect that work
has already bee done on this and would be interested to hear the results.
My previous thoughts that the workers themselves were probably the immune system still hold good as a first
line of defence.  We seem to be obsesseed today with breeding non aggressive bees.  One wonders if this is
just for the benefit of the breeders as it is easier to work with nice friendly bees!  We are always being
told not to breed from aggressive bees but I like to breed from the hive with the best honey production and
this is invariably the most aggressive hive.
I don't think we all want to breed Africanized bees but I also don't think we should get carried away trying
to breed out the bees defence system.
I would be interested to know if Africanized bees are known to be infected with varroa.
 
Harry