Boffins have managed to engineer new strains of bacteria to keep safe honey bees from a death-dealing course known as the colony collapse disorder.
Colony collapse disorder, as explained by United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is an event when the majority of worker bees in a colony disappear and leave the queen bee behind. After the worker bees leave, a lot of food bees but a few nurse bees then take care of the queen bee.
Colony collapse disorder is also called CCD.
The study, published in the journal Science, an increasing number of honey bee colonies have seen a gradual diminishing of their adult bees with beekeepers in the US alone losing nearly 40 per cent of their colonies last winter.
The study said that without honey bees, dozens of crops -- from almonds to berries to broccoli -- would either disappear, or produce significantly less food across the world.
THE NEW BACTERIA
The new bacteria engineered by researchers, including those from the University of Texas at Austin in the US, live in the guts of honey bees.
This new bacteria act as biological factories, pumping out medicines protecting the bees against two major causes of colony collapse - Varroa mites, and deformed wing virus.
According to the scientists, this method of protecting the bees with engineered gut bacteria may one day scale up for agricultural use since the bacteria are easy to grow, with a straightforward method of inoculating the bees with them.
"It has direct implications for bee health," PTI was quoted Nancy Moran, study co-author from the University of Texas at Austin, as saying.
"This is the first time anyone has improved the health of bees by genetically engineering their microbiome," added Sean Leonard, a graduate student and first author of the study.
The study noted that the mites and the virus often come together.
As the mites feed on bees, they can spread the virus, while also weakening the bees and making them more vulnerable to infectious agents in the environment, the scientists explained.
To address both the problems, the researchers engineered one strain of bacteria to target the virus, and another for the mites.
Compared with control bees, the bees treated with the strain of bacteria targeting the virus were about 36 per cent more likely to survive to day 10.
Varroa mites feeding on another set of bees treated with the mite-targeting strain of bacteria were about 70 per cent more likely to die by day 10 than mites feeding on control bees.
The scientists added that the studies were conducted under strict bio-containment protocols used with genetic engineering.
They added that even without such protocols, the risk of the engineered bacteria escaping into the wild and infecting other insects -- and thereby conferring some anti-pest or anti-pathogen superpowers -- is very low.
According to the researchers, the type of engineered bacteria are highly specialised to live in the bee gut, and can't survive for long outside of it.
However, they added that further research will be needed to determine the effectiveness and safety of the treatments in agricultural settings.
So, the genetically engineered symbiotic gut bacteria in honey bees is successful at killing varroa mites, which tend to make bees sick and leave them at an increased risk of colony collapse disorder.
HONEY BEES FACING CRISIS
Honey bees globally are facing a new crisis. According to ScienceMag.org report, since the 1940s, the number of honey bee hives in the United States has dropped from 6 million to 2.5 million.
The report explained that a combination of colony-killing mites, viral pathogens, and possibly pesticides is largely to blame.
Now, researchers are using a method, an unusual one, in the the fight to save the bees - a bacterium that lives solely in their guts.
By genetically modifying the bacterium to trick the mite or a virus to destroy some of its own DNA, scientists have improved bee survival in the lab.
This method has killed many of the mites that were parasitising the bees.
(With inputs from PTI)