Addressing the buzz around bee health

A full third of the food we eat is dependent on pollination by bees to grow. And yet, bees around the world are under threat - meaning that world food production is similarly under threat.

Grants totalling $550,000 are helping a leading international bee expert - along with local beekeepers - combat the global decline in bee health that threatens world food production.

“The US has lost more than 10 million hives over the last six years and is having problems securing crop pollination,” said Professor Boris Baer from the University of Western Australia’s Centre for Integrative Bee Research (CIBER), who will undertake research to protect bees.

Australian beekeepers are reporting increasing disease problems, such as American foul brood, hive beetle and Nosema, a parasitic fungus, Baer said. The main problem facing bees worldwide - the Varroa mite - is expected to arrive in Australia in the next decade. The effect of the Varroa mite on Australian honeybees is expected to be catastrophic.

“We need about 750,000 hives to pollinate our crops but we currently have only about 500,000 managed colonies. A lot of the pollination is done by feral bees at the moment, but they are expected to be wiped out by Varroa.”

Baer says an important step in saving bees is to understand more about their immune system. While bees harbour more than 80 different parasites, their efficient immune systems help them cope with these diseases.

“Our pilot work has shown that bees possess substances that are very efficient at killing parasitic fungi and we need to identify the molecules responsible and understand their function,” Baer said. “This will allow us to search specifically for more parasite-tolerant bees and breed them.

“It also offers the opportunity to produce new treatments against diseases if such molecules could be produced commercially.”

Baer has received $430,000 from the Australian Research Council Linkage Project scheme and $120,000 from Better Bees towards his research.