Beatriz Retuerta
Guadalajara, Feb 8 (EFE).- Mariano Higes Pascual and Raquel Martín Hernández, doctors in Veterinary Medicine, are the two researchers who lead the team at the Marchamalo Beekeeping Center (Guadalajara) who have collaborated, along with other countries, to carry out the first vaccine for bees. This center, with almost four decades of life, was born in response to a demand from the sector that in those years saw its name recognized, the Honey of the Alcarria.
The North American biotechnological company Dalan Animal contacted these researchers three years ago. “They asked us if we were qualified to carry out a clinical trial in the laboratory and, after discussing it among ourselves, we saw that it was a very interesting work proposal, since it represented an advance in the traditional therapies used in beekeeping,” explains Higes in an interview with EFE.
This collaboration materialized in an agreement with the Ministry of Agriculture, through the Castilla-La Mancha Regional Institute for Agri-Food and Forestry Research and Development (IRIAF), the body to which that center is attached, and they began to work.
THE VACCINE IS INTRODUCED IN THE FOOD OF THE QUEEN BEES
Specifically, this center has been in charge of testing the developed vaccine: “It consisted of verifying the efficacy of a substance that was applied to the queens in the food and to see if the immunity that the queen transmits to the larvae is capable of reducing mortality in American foulbrood disease”, explains Raquel Martín.
Higes assures that “it was a challenge”, since despite having previously had other projects related to American foulbrood, those were more aimed at seeing the resistance to antibiotics of this bacterium, but in “this case it was a totally different methodology and complex for us and it also turned out to be effective”.
This testing, as Raquel Martín explains, consists of “supplying them with the queens and keeping them for a while in the laboratory with some workers and the food where the vaccine comes from. After eight days, they are introduced into orphaned hives where the larvae born from these queens confront the American foulbrood bacteria and see if they die or not”.
“We had to do several preliminary tests, since the larvae we work with are less than one millimeter. We were working with 20 queens in 20 hives and several hundred larvae were caught from them to face the food, and it was complex to set it up”, explains Higes, who points out that this step allows them to advance “in a new field, which opens up the door for many future studies”.
THIS STUDY OPENS THE DOOR TO FACE OTHER INFECTIOUS DISEASES
In fact, this year they continue to collaborate with this same biotechnological company in other studies and it is likely that they will continue working with them in the future, because “this study opens the door to dealing with other infectious diseases and this treatment system can probably be efficient” .
American foulbrood is a disease that is caused by a bacterium “and the treatments should be through antibiotics, but the use in hives is prohibited or very restricted, so it is very difficult to deal with an outbreak of this disease,” explains Martín.
Hence the importance of this vaccine, which addresses the immunity of bees, which very few studies have undertaken.
Higes emphasizes that bees, for some time now and especially due to climate change, have been exposed to many diseases, which is altering their immune activity and making them more sensitive to other pathogens, which is why “having these tools is so important”.
The Marchamalo (Guadalajara) beekeeping center currently has about 50 employees, it is attached to the Castilla-La Mancha Regional Institute for Agri-Food and Forestry Research and Development, dependent on the Castilla-La Mancha Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development. La Mancha, and is a national and international benchmark, as evidenced by this pioneering collaboration.
Numerous researchers have passed through its facilities to carry out their theses and collaborate on various projects with different universities and countries.
