From: Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]>
>You have sort of hijacked this topic. We were talking about banning Clothianidin and you brought up your favorite topic, gut microbes.

Peter, I'm so sorry if you feel hijacked...perhaps I should connect the dots.  There was a comment about pesticides (including Clothianidin) affecting the immune system in bees.  I brought up two older studies that, when looked at together and in the context of the question at hand, provides a possible mechanism.  Gilliam found that 2,4,D affected the microbial balance in the bees (Clothianidin had not been invented in 1974), and Evans found that changing the microbial balance in the diet had a significant impact on immune response.

I don't think you can really discuss honeybee health without considering microbes (gut and otherwise).  Microbes affect nutrition (see Randy's writings about 24 methyl cholesterol, see much of the other research on pollen fermentation) and immune response (see not only this and other work by Evans, but also some of the more recent work by Alejandra Vasquez and Tobias Olofsson).

>Calling it "antibacterial RNA" is a bit of an oversimplification at best.

As Allen points out, any summary or paraphrasing is an oversimplification, and this is no exception.  If one wants to know the details, one should read the study (and perhaps ask the author questions)...this is why I used as examples studies that are freely available on the internet _and_ provided links to them.  I think for the purpose of this discussion, my oversimplification works well enough.  The quote you provide is also an "oversimplification", as it leaves everything else the author states out.

>The point of the article is that feeding non-pathenogenic bacteria (pro-biotics) may stimulate the immune system.

I should say that I don't agree with the authors use of the term "probiotic" in this case.  In it's widest definition, a probiotic is a live culture that is advantageous when consumed.  Myself (and I might be alone on this), I think of probiotics as something used to change the balance of a microbial culture for positive benefit...in this case, the bacteria used is not otherwise present in the gut of the honeybee, and there is no indication that it takes hold, reproduces, and colonizes....ie, it is just a live feed suppliment and imparts no long term changes in the culture.  In contrast, the probiotics sold for human use are cultures of the same bacteria that is (or should be) in your gut.  

It is the difference between stocking trout in waterways where they can reproduce and stocking "tiger trout" which don't breed.  The former is designed to modify (perhaps restore) the ecosystem, the latter is intended to be caught for sport and not have a lasting impact on the ecosystem.

>Priming the immune system of organisms in this way hasn't yet been proved to have long term benefit.

I don't know of any study that has shown non-endogenous bacteria have any long term benefits...but there is a good deal of both folk medicine and scientific work on benefits of restoring microbial cultures that are supposed to be present.  The best example I can think of was brought to our attention on beesource in response to your disbelief that antibiotics have negative consequences.

"Fecal bacteriotherapy uses the complete normal human flora as a therapeutic probiotic mixture of living organisms. This type of bacteriotherapy has a longstanding history in animal health and has been used sporadically against chronic infections of the bowel, especially as a treatment of last resort for patients with severe Clostridium difficile syndromes including recurrent diarrhea, colitis, and pseudomembranous colitis."
http://journals.lww.com/jcge/Abstract/2004/07000/Bacteriotherapy_Using_Fecal_Flora__Toying_With.3.aspx

C. difficle is a persistent (and unplesant) infection that tends to follow IV antibiotic treatment wiping the other gut microbes out...the infection prevents the others from returning as they normally do.  More antibiotics often don't help the situation, as the C. difficle keeps coming back faster than the others.  The cure of last resort (which seems to work, but is distasteful) is a fecal sample is taken from a close friend or relative, a tube is put down your throat (to go past your upper digestive system that would otherwise kill the microbes), and the lower digestive system is inoculated (litteraly, "eat sh*t, or die")....or sometimes it is administered from "the bottom up".

"Aas et al treated 18 patients with multiply
recurrent C difficile infection with a nasogastric infusion
of donor stool provided by a healthy family member.37
Ninety days after receipt of the “stool transplant,” 15 of
18 patients remained relapse-free."
http://usagiedu.com/articles/cdiffrec/cdiffrec.pdf

...all this said, I brought up this study not because of the conclusions the author draws, but because it clearly shows an interaction between ingested bacteria and immune response.  

Micromanaging the microbial cultures (either by use of antibiotics or probiotics) is likely to affect the immune response (which, to some extent, seems to be a feedback loop between microbial cultures and the immune response of bees....and is also "tuned" to the kinds and ranges of cultures that are naturally occurring in the hive).

>Maybe more work has been done since this was published in 2004? Actually, he writes in 2010:

In a talk to our county club a few years ago, Jeff Pettis mentioned that work on probiotics looked promising in the lab and on caged bees, but didn't seem to have an impact on bees in the field.  I have no idea what the studies are, and I have no idea if they were looking at probiotics that are generally found in the hive (and may be lacking), or foreign microbes (and I do think there is a big difference).


>The management change that is implied here is to stop transporting bees from state to state to pollinate. Is this realistic?

I'm not sure what your point is.  Because I cite some of his work from 2004 that I must agree and side with what he is saying now?  I don't even agree with everything he says in the 2004 study!  Don't hijack _my_ thread!  ;p

>Sort of like saying, if you didn't go to work every day in a crowded office, you wouldn't catch every bug that makes the rounds. True, but some of us have to work for a living, in crowded offices. 

This is an interesting example Peter, it is almost exactly why I don't think the "hypertraits" of HYG and VSH are the right way to go with breeding for disease resistance.

deknow

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