USDA-ARS Bee Lab Updates with Dr. Jay Evans (290)

290 - USDA-ARS Bee Lab Updates with Dr. Jay Evans

USDA-ARS Beltsville Bee Lab: Welcome to the Beekeeping Today Podcast from the USDA ARS Bee Research Lab in Beltsville, Maryland.

[music]

Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

Becky Masterman: Today's episode is brought to you by the bee nutrition superheroes at Global Patties. Family-operated and buzzing with passion, Global Patties crafts protein-packed patties that'll turn your hives into powerhouse production. Picture this, strong colonies, booming brood, and honey flowing like a sweet river. It's super protein for your bees and they love it. Check out their buffet of patties, tailor-made for your bees in your specific area. Head over to www.globalpatties.com and give your bees the nutrition they deserve.

Jeff: Quick shout out to all of our sponsors whose support allows us to bring you this podcast each week without resorting to a fee-based subscription. We don't want that and we know you don't either. Be sure to check out all of our content on the website. There, you can read up on all of our guests, read our blog on the various aspects and observations about beekeeping, search for, download, and listen to over 250 past episodes, read episode transcripts, leave comments and feedback on each episode, and check on podcast specials from our sponsors. You can find it all at www.beekeepingtodaypodcast.com.

Thanks to Dr. Jay Evans and the USDA ARS Beltsville Bee Lab team for that fantastic opening. We'll be talking to Dr. Jay Evans here coming right up.

Becky: Exactly. That was nice of Jay to get us started.

Jeff: Becky, I got to admit, I had a weak colony, or actually it was a packaged colony that I started, is probably in the worst position in the apiary, in the bee yard, and it has come down with European foulbrood. What a disappointment.

Becky: EFB. What do you mean worst position in the apiary? Let's start there.

Jeff: It's in the shade, receives a lot of wind.

Becky: You're setting them up to fail, are you? [laughs]

Jeff: Somebody had to be there. Anyways, and to make it worse, and we've talked about used equipment and putting bees on old comb in the past. This poor colony, I did set them up for fail because they did have bad, I won't say bad because I didn't know that it was bad, but they did have old brood comb that they started out with. I think that's the three strikes, and plus we've had a very long, cool spring.

It did not start getting warm around here until, oh, I don't know, the third week of June when we finally broke 70 degrees. It was in the 50s and cool and just miserable. They just really struggled and they finally succumbed to the European-- They haven't died, but that's what I'm dealing with. What's your experience, European foulbrood? I have little, I have nothing with EFB.

Becky: EFB is something that I've definitely seen in colonies that I've managed before. I don't have it in my operation, but I've definitely seen it. It's been an issue where the protocol was that you notice it, you mark the colony in the frames, and once they've moved on, you rotate that out of the operation. At the very least, you don't move any of those frames to another colony, so they all get X-marked.

Also, we haven't used any oxytetracycline in the EFB colony, so we haven't seen it bad enough when I was running the bee squad where we would actually get a prescription and get them treated. It was something that we just handled through nutrition and giving them syrup and pollen sub. You can also do the queen replacement too, to get them past it.

Jeff: I've condensed them all down to a single box. I've pulled the old brood comb that wasn't being used and condensed them down to four or five good frames or decent frames that had some brood in it, put in some fresh foundation, and then I'm going to put them on a pollen patty and some other feed. To try to replace or kick in, supplement the natural forage that they have going.

Hopefully that works. Oxytetracycline is an option. Do not have a prescription for that at this point. Anyways, it's an interesting, depressing disappointment. Depressing disappointment, or I'm being redundant. It's an unexpected problem to face, but I'll keep you informed as how this recovery takes place.

Becky: Yes, I don't think you should be too hard on yourself. One, it's great to be able to talk about it. Two, it happens in a lot of operations. The way we manage bees, it's bound to happen. Hey, I've got to ask you, could you smell a sour smell in the colony? Did that give it away?

Jeff: Yes, as soon as I opened it up, I smelled something but it wasn't foul. It really had a sweet, weird smell to it. It wasn't foul, like American foulbrood. I smelled that. It didn't smell like the aster goldenrod type. It had a sweet, and I know the books say ammonia or whatever, and I don't think it smelled like ammonia at all. I did do an EFB test. I was able to get my hands on one of those very precious commodity items.

Becky: There's a shortage right now. I think it was linked to all the veterinarians we're bringing into the system. That's what I heard the other day. [chuckles]

Jeff: I believe it's the manufacturer of the test kits had a problem with their paperwork and they can no longer import them until they get the paperwork squared away is what I actually heard. I don't want to blame it on the vets at all.

Becky: I think it was triggered because of the vets ordering them. It's all good but maybe we can speculate. They took responsibility but we'll see. Anyway, it's hard to get them into the country, correct?

Jeff: Yes. Hopefully, maybe by the time the podcast releases, they've got that resolved and those kits are available. I did the test. That was a fun experiment. Either my colony has European foulbrood or it's pregnant. I'm not sure which test I pulled off the shelf.

Becky: Congratulations. [chuckles]

Jeff: Wait till I tell the queen.

Becky: Gosh, another baby. This is so exciting. It is funny looking at those because it's like, wait, does it have COVID? Is it pregnant? No, it's EFB. Okay, that's what we're looking at.

Jeff: Speaking of tests and research and everything, our guest today, I'm looking forward to Dr. Jay Evans from the USDA ARS Beltsville Bee Lab is our guest today. We've had Jay on the show in the past. I've spoken to him on multiple other occasions. Jay has a wealth of information, a wealth of experience on honey bee research.

Becky: I am looking forward to hearing from Jay because he is my research hero. It's amazing how much work he is a part of and his knowledge runs so deep and he's like a national bee research treasure.

Jeff: Yes, I agree. Let's [chuckles] invite him into the studio right after this quick word from our sponsors.

[music]

StrongMicrobials: Strong Microbials presents an exciting new product SuperFuel, the probiotic fondant that serves as nectar on demand for our honey bees. SuperFuel is powered by three remarkable bacteria known as bacilli, supporting bees and breaking down complex substances for easy digestion and nutrient absorption. This special energy source provides all the essential amino acids, nutrients, polyphenols, and bioflavonoids, just like natural flower nectar.

Vital for the bees' nutrition and overall health, SuperFuel is the optimal feed for dearth periods, overwinter survival, or whenever supplemental feeding is needed. A big plus is the patties do not get hive beetle larvae, so it offers all bioavailable nutrients without any waste. Visit strongmicrobials.com now to discover more about SuperFuel and get your probiotic fondant today.

Jeff: And while you're at the Strong Microbials site, make sure you click on and subscribe to the hiiv, the regular newsletter full of interesting beekeeping facts and product updates. Hey, everybody, welcome back. Sitting across this big virtual Beekeeping Today podcast table is Dr. Jay Evans of the USDA ARS Beltsville Bee Lab. Jay, welcome to the podcast.

Jay Evans: Thank you so much, Jeff, and it's really an honor to be with you and Becky and talk to you today about beekeeping and some research.

Becky: Thanks for being here, Jay. We really appreciate you taking time to be here.

Jeff: I hope I got all those acronyms correct there, USDA ARS. Yes, that's it.

Becky: Government loves the acronym. [chuckles]

Jeff: Jay, for those who don't know you from Bee Culture and your talks and your history with bees, why don't you give us a little bit about your background and history with honey bee?

Jay: Sure. I was someone who really wanted to do biology from a young age and naturalist-type things but mostly on the seashore in Washington State and went to college, fell in with a project with ants, actually. Did a research project and worked there after graduation for a year and decided, wow, that's my passion. I want to do something with the social behavior of ants. Did that for a while and was introduced to bees right after graduate school by a student in Keith Delaplane's undergrad beekeeping class at the University of Georgia where I had just landed to do some research.

She just took me down and they had their post-package single box colonies and I went through it and I was like, wow, this is, one, it was beautiful, the smells and the bees and the queen and the brood. Then, also thinking, I was having this crisis that if I kept going with ants, somebody would ask me to just try to kill them as well as I could. This was a way out of that.

I had begun to really love my ants. I thought, well, this is a way to apply science maybe to learning how to help an insect. It was a lucky break. The next lucky break was to get another gig in Tucson at the University of Arizona. While there, Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman helped get me some chops with ants and bees for some lab work on genetics we were doing. Somehow, some way I ended up getting hired by the USDA back in Maryland 25 years ago. I've been working with honey bees since that time and primarily with the diseases of bees and how to tackle those traits of the pathogens and parasites, but also how bees defend themselves against those.

Jeff: Quite a history. That sounds like a lot of fun all the way from one coast to the other coast.

Jay: Yes.

Jeff: You've also been recognized for your work and your research, haven't you?

Jay: Yes. I think we have a great team there. We've always had the scientists in any of the USDA labs and the universities work together. We've had some lab projects that have been successful from the, I call it tool or resource building, working on the genome of the honey bee, which was really rewarding and fun. I think eventually has led to insights into breeding and monitoring bee health. Yes, it's been a really great lab from the USDA.

I will say the advantage with a federal job versus a university is it's really a nice structure and infrastructure for hosting visitors. We bring in international visitors interested in bees and have the stability to do maybe multi-year projects and things like that are really rewarding working there.

Becky: Jay, are you the Kevin Bacon of the beekeeping research world? Is it how many degrees of Jay Evans as far as research? [chuckles]

Jay: I think I took it to heart from the ants and the bees that the best way to do science is to just find smarter and nice people and work with them. I do probably have more average co-authors than other researchers because of that. We have a lot of projects that rely on different people in different places.

Becky: It's such a nice resource for researchers to be able to collaborate with the national bee labs. When you look at-- I was just doing a quick search of what you publish lately and it's really overwhelming [chuckles] because it spans so many different subjects and you're working with so many different teams. Your projects are, it's not just one thing you're working on, it's many. How do you keep track of all of it, Jay?

Jay: Fortunately, it's a many-headed monster, a lot of these projects, and there are experts in topics who really help lead or direct those projects. I'll do my part and my skills, but none of us are really capable of doing the breadth of the project. It's both within our lab, certainly with Judy Chen and I have worked together for a couple of decades now. We each have different strengths and weaknesses. It's always a great thing in science to sit together with a few people and say, "This is where we want to get to," either a better diagnostic or a testing.

I'll talk about different medicines we're trying to test, but we need a chemist, we need a real beekeeper, we need a geneticist, and then just managing the team and the staff members who are critical to getting those projects. I think it's been increasingly, certainly over my career, both accepted and essential to have these big groups of scientists at different levels, young scientists and old scientists, and try to tackle problems that way. It's been really fun.

Becky: Basically, you're taking questions and you're divvying up the work, right? One group might process a set of samples that another group collected. Is that how it's working for some of these projects?

Jay: Definitely. Yes. Then, even at the analysis level, if we get a study that we're looking at how the bee's physiology changes, like their immune response, someone might be really good at tackling that part of the question but not a virologist or a disease person. That would be a different person working on that aspect. It is fun. Yes, it's a good way to, I don't know, it's a fun way to do science, I guess.

Jeff: But definitely a collaborative effort. I think you get a lot more out of end product, end result is stronger, I think, with more people that you have involved, up to a limit, I suppose. [chuckles]

Jay: We don't have 30,000-person experiments or scientist experiments like the bees have.

Jeff: [chuckles] Each month in Bee Culture, you select a topic or two about the latest in research. What excites you right now in the honey bee research that either USDA is, that you're participating in, or what's there that really got your interest going?

Jay: That's a great question. There's always a deluge of new research across the world in bees. There's no shortage of stories coming out or different systems. I'd say there's incredible work right now on viewing the colony as, and maybe it's from our mindset from COVID, but viewing the colony as this mess of interactions and risks to those with the viruses moving around, certainly mites acting as a trigger for much of that movement, but not all of it. A lot of neat behavioral work now on how bees behave when they're sick, which fascinates me because we think of ourselves as like, "Having an off day, I'm not going to go into the workplace or I am going to go in and then half of my group is going to be sick."

There's been some really neat thought and now research on that at the colony level. I think that's going to be really important for sorting out the risks of mites to colonies. Why is it that maybe in the past beekeepers could tolerate mites at 3 mites per 100? That seems like a bygone era. There's something different about the group level impact of infection now. Again, it takes a lot of expertise, people who can do field studies and watch, know the signs of a collapsing colony in the field certainly better than I could ever do.

It takes people doing genetics to identify the viruses. Then it's just designing experiments where you can get at what's-- I would think of it in part as a predictive strategy for bad fates or good fates of colonies. When do when a colony is a lost cause and what can you do to try to save it, I guess. That's been this countrywide, certainly if not worldwide, a topic of research that's been really exciting.

I do on those columns, I do try to also find things that I know very little about like propolis, which is fascinating and successful and just a great topic or different pollen and nectar values, some chemical stress or other stresses like that, things that bees find in the environment that are stressful, different temperatures. I'm fascinated by people trying to sort out that our assumptions about climate or weather on bee health are often wrong.

There is a neat paper that Gloria was involved with recently showing that these warmer late falls that are a bad thing. If you better just have the bees go to sleep and stop flying and you think, wow, they have this extended summer. This is great. That probably means they're going to go into winter with their wings frayed and their fat body's gone. I think there's been a lot of neat work just viewing the whole system, I guess, of the colony and trying to sort out what's important for them.

Jeff: For our longtime listeners who've heard me complain in the past, moving to Washington State where you're familiar or Western Washington has been a hard transition for me as a beekeeper coming from Colorado and/or Ohio because the winters are so different. Colorado or Ohio, "the winters come and the bees go dormant." They're done till the springtime. Washington State, they're pretty active all year round. There's brood in there all the time. It's a completely different, it's a longer season now. With the climate changes that are happening, how's that going to impact bees? That's a scary, interesting, fun question to ponder. Let's take this quick break to hear from our sponsors and we'll be right back.

[music]

HiveAlive: HiveAlive has just launched EZ Feed Super Syrup, their unique formula made from seaweed, thyme, and lemongrass helps keep bees healthy, boost populations, and increase honey production. Now, with EZ Feed Super Syrup, feeding bees is simple. Just place the ready-to-use pouch on your hives for quick, mess-free feeding. Visit your local beekeeping store or usa.hivealivebees.com for more info. Use code BTP for a special discount.

Bee Smart Designs: Are you a smart beekeeper looking to stay ahead of the curve? Introducing BeeSmart Designs, the ultimate line of innovative, modular, and interchangeable hive system and cool tools. As a listener of the Beekeeping Today Podcast, you understand the importance of staying informed on the latest advancements in beekeeping. This is where BeeSmart System comes in.

Designed with you and your bees in mind, our core hive system works with all standard Langstroth equipment and is 8 and 10 frame compatible. Made in the USA using recycled and American-sourced materials, our products are ready to use. Visit beesmartdesigns.com to explore our groundbreaking offerings and links to your favorite dealer. BeeSmart Designs, next generation beekeeping products for the modern beekeeper.

Betterbee: Feeding your bees is a breeze with the BeeSmart Direct Feeder. Just place it on top of your uppermost box with a medium hive body around it and you can feed your bees directly while minimizing the risk of robbing. For a limited time, you'll receive a free sample of HiveAlive and a coupon for future discounts with your new feeder. HiveAlive supplements made from seaweed, thyme, and lemongrass help your colonies thrive, boost honey production, reduce overwinter mortality, and improve bee gut health. Visit betterbee.com/feeder to get your new feeder and free HiveAlive sample today.

Becky: Welcome back, everybody. Jay, a lot of the work that you were doing up until last year was at least partially supporting the efforts of the Bee Informed Partnership. Their absence is really creating a hole and what do going forward without Bee Informed Partnership being there?

Jay: That's a good question. I would say we were consumers of data from the Bee Informed Partnership more than contributors because everybody as a scientist benefited from data on colony loss and certainly the disease survey, which we were a bit more involved with. It is a shock, in a way, and sad news. The first shock is knowing just the fantastic people working behind that. Job insecurity, unfortunately, for some really good scientists. I don't know, I don't have a feel for its next stages. I hope certainly that there is something very similar that comes out of this and we see both the existing data from there is useful still to beekeepers and scientists and regulators and the effort continues in some fashion.

Jeff: Do you think that the BIP was formed out of a crisis? Are we going to need another crisis, maybe with eight legs, to form another team or to be able to resume that work?

Jay: It's certainly, it's a lot of honey bee big science, I would say, and that's a big science type project, was born of the crisis with colony losses and worries about the complexity of keeping bees alive by beekeepers, which is real still. Honestly, I think there's as much of a challenge right now for being a viable beekeeper as there was 15 years ago. I don't think we need a new crisis. I think it's more maybe reshaping the vision of what would be useful moving forward and help the beekeepers. There are certainly other efforts to do, certainly in the US countrywide surveys of bee health and loss, the USDA.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service is doing a good job at quarterly loss surveys and annual reports and the Colony Loss Management Survey has been picked up largely by Auburn University. Having that under 1/10th, like be informed, it's if I had a idle time on a weekend, I would look through their data and pour over. It just was a really nice, cleanly presented set of profound and hard-won data. Yes, I do hope that effort at some level comes back, that would be great.

Jeff: I have to ask, speaking of eight-legged troubles, there's been a lot of interest in the Tropilaelaps appearance in Asia and early in the summer, there's talk about it being present in Europe. Is there any interest in the USDA ARS on Tropilaelaps and any research planned?

Jay: Yes, there's a great interest for Tropilaelaps, both in our agency, the Agricultural Research Service, and then certainly APHIS, who is the regulatory branch of USDA for import risk and risk of arrival, and is actively, having done a really excellent job scoping the arrival of the Asian or the northern giant hornet, and then also now the yellow-legged hornet, which are two equally scary events. They are strongly focused now on Tropilaelaps.

We have a program going with it. We have a number of samples for genetics and genetic markers. Dr. Steven Cook and I will actually go to Thailand in November to do a mini project on the ground. He, of course, is an expert in mite controls and chemical controls, and so, getting a bead. It's been great work by Dr. Sammy Ramsey on that, is getting a bead on how, if it were to arrive, at least in a warm climate like that, how people can deal with it. Having said that, we don't have it yet, fortunately. We have pretty good, I think, monitoring systems, namely beekeepers, who tell us when they see something like Tropilaelaps.

Many of us were considering it as a warm weather, subtropical, or slightly warm temperate challenge. In May, there was a paper from Far Western Russia showing what seems to be a valid incursion of mercedesae, which is one of the species that goes all the way from the warmth of Thailand and Southern China, seem to be thriving in this pretty different climate out there. There's a lot of questions there, like how do they survive without brood? Do they have other hosts in that?

Jeff: There was some speculation of hosting on rats or something over the winter.

Jay: Isn't that weird? Yes, other mites in that, the Laelapidae, this family, are co-hosted by mice and rodents. Just when you think things get worse, which they would almost have to be in that environment. There's certainly a long broodless period and they don't do well in beehives without brood. There are a lot of open questions from that discovery. In fact, I think maybe our one practical avenue, we do have a visiting scientist from Beijing and China, which is fairly temperate, a little bit like Maryland, maybe a little bit warmer. They have Tropilaelaps there on Apis cerana and mellifera, understanding what's going on in these climates that are a lot like much of the US and is it a problem? Is it not a problem?

It's certainly on the radar. It's new, we're learning a lot about it because it wasn't in our study set before. [chuckles] I don't claim to be an expert. We're certainly reading up on what's going on worldwide and also doing what we can do, which is checking for pathogens, maybe biological controls, but also checking, refining the diagnostic tools so it's easily picked out of debris or other forms of-- Relatively easily ways to sample in colonies because it will take really high vigilance, even without having legal imports of bees or live-ish bee products. It will take really sharp vigilance at ports to make sure there's not a swarm of cerana that's carrying it or such.

It's on the radar. It's getting a lot of attention. We've had-- Trying to divide up tasks, as it were, academic scientists, government scientists to make sure we can be ready for it and try to prevent it first, of course, but then be ready in case it makes it in.

Becky: Jay, Jeff shared that link to that report to me and I think I remember reading very quickly, but they detected it through genetic markers and not actually-- I thought they went backwards and found that it had been there for a little while using that data. Is that something that's being done here?

Jay: They actually confirmed it even to the species with the genetic markers, sequencing a bit of its mitochondrial DNA, but it was the whole search in that region of right next to just east of Ukraine, actually, of Crimea. The search was triggered by beekeepers complaining about a new syndrome of some sort of perforated brood and weak colonies, which is what's scary too, is that's a colony-level syndrome that's fairly new. They scouted and they saw this skittery little mite, I think visually, before they did the genetics to confirm that it was Tropilaelaps and not another opportunistic mite. The genetics really said, hey, this is a species even that we know, not just a group of mites that's a risk. How it got there across thousands of miles is unclear. I don't think it's continuous across Asia into Europe, but there is bee movement there as there is here within the country. A bit of a mystery, still.

Becky: The USDA Bee Lab, you're looking at Tropilaelaps, but it's part of a bigger picture. You guys, you all have a plan for going forward. Really, you evaluate every five years, the national plan, or National Program 305. Is that what it is?

Jay: That's right, yes. As an agency or as a research agency in the pollinator laboratories, start the cycle about a year in advance and get a workshop to discuss with beekeepers and other stakeholders what worked in the last cycle and what's a new priority, say. Then each of the scientists in the groups and there tends to be one plan for each of the bee labs.

Now there are six honey bee-centric labs, five honey bee-centric labs, and then Logan, which has a honey bee element to it as well. Each of us, we'd get together and take what worked and what was unfinished from the current plan and shape a new project plan. Those are now being reviewed. They will get a review also by other scientists and beekeepers and then go into action next year.

Jeff: How is it decided who participates in that planning process or what topics make the list, make the cut?

Jay: Now, that is above my grade level. I will say I did attend the August meeting and we did have an in-person stage of it as well. There were commercial beekeepers, some of the AIA folks, inspectors, and they listened to what had happened and voiced their opinions on, one, that things are still challenging in the field, in the industry, as you know. Very good feedback on how hard it is to make a living as beekeeper.

I would say that, yes, at a higher level, these are the touch points that are important. Then it does go back then the scientists try to shape within what the focus of each laboratory, each group is, try to shape how they could contribute to that. As you know, there are different historical identities of the labs. Our lab is really focused more on disease and American foulbrood and on to now mites. The Baton Rouge laboratory is focused on genetics and breeding primarily. Tucson has become more nutrition and climate.

There's a whole new population of really good scientists in Stoneville, Mississippi, and Copperville. They're also looking at bees in an agricultural landscape, trying to better understand the pesticide stress and the costs and benefits often of being in crops that aren't-- That don't require or tend not to have bee pollination but attract bees like soybean and cotton.

Jeff: I think I saw something recently about the study, and I don't know if it was a USDA study-funded research, about the effects of neonicotinoids on the health of honey bees and weakening colonies. I would imagine that area of study would be a big area, a lot of activity.

Jay: Yes, there is. I think in that laboratory in Mississippi, because of the nature of the landscape, it's pretty, it's heavily agricultural, row crop agriculture. They do have two toxicologists looking at impacts on bees, both neonicotinoids or the many, several classes of pesticides, insecticides, and herbicides. We've had Steven Cook in our group has done some of that work. A lot of the groups are looking at that, in the context of disease and stress, generally. We know now that there are additive effects certainly of stress and disease. That's probably the most active work.

One interesting thing in the Stoneville lab is they're looking at deterrents even for bees to see if they can warn them, [chuckles] keep them from foraging too far into cotton fields. That's been one of their topics. Again, it's back to looking at the colony as a whole, there's weather and climate stress, there's chemical stress, and then the biologicals, like good food coming in, and the biological threats like viruses and mites and all that. Trying to tie those all together. None of us are experts in all of them. Again, it gets back to research teams where somebody can tackle the chemical identities and stresses, for example.

Becky: Speaking of good food, I have to ask you to comment on the sunflower Varroa work. Are you telling everybody to plant sunflowers? [chuckles]

Jay: It's a good question. That work, it really was born of a study in Massachusetts with bumblebees. Sunflower pollen, when fed to bees in controlled settings, decreased some gut parasites and diseases, some aspect of it. That was our hook and that it could be somewhat medicinal, as it were. The mite side of that was serendipity of looking at a mini field trial of that.

I will say it's a very open question. We've done with some help from PAM - Project Apis m., we did a mini project that was not conclusive in the field. We did not find a reduction in mites, sadly, with pollen patties of sunflower and wildflower. Zach Lomas actually ran this, Dr. Lomas, and a small-scale study, but a really nice study and couldn't see an immediate knockdown. I don't know. sunflowers, yes, I would say as part of a mixed with other forage plants, they're a very good plant for bees for sure. Whether they will-- They don't take the place of good Varroa management [chuckles] at this point, sadly, we'd hope.

Jeff: Rats.

Jay: Yes.

Becky: Yes, rats, that's Tropilaelaps, Jeff. [chuckles]

Jay: Oh, we've moved on from topics, right? Okay.

Becky: As far as biosecurity, hydrogen peroxide, is there a future in that study? Is anybody trying to bring that to beekeepers?

Jay: There have been other fumigants and surface bleach and other ways to rescue contaminated comb. That's probably the best-case scenario for hydrogen peroxide. I think it's an open question. It would obviously take some care and probably make it economical for beekeepers to use something like that. In the same way as ethylene oxide or gamma radiation, there are these technologies and we know that comb retains certainly pesticides, but also viruses and Nosema spores for a pretty good amount of time. It might be a more safe and a way to rescue, as it were, decontaminate empty equipment. Yes, I think there is good promise there.

Jeff: What a great segue because before you came on, Becky and I were talking this spring. I was dealing with a case of a European foulbrood. Old school, I was just going to burn or bury, get rid of the frames that are probably contaminated. What's the latest research on European foulbrood? I have a friend who wants to know.

[chuckling]

Jay: Okay.

Becky: It's a whole segment we have sometimes.

Jay: Give a quarter to the therapist. No, actually, it's a very good topic, a very active topic. You've seen, I'm sure, a lot of the work, like Meghan Milbrath and the USDA colleague Kirk Anderson, just showing how complex it is. It does seem to correlate with some pollination events more so maybe than genetics of queens, which would affect other diseases. It does seem like something you can manage out of your bees.

The complicating part is a lot of what is diagnosis as European foulbrood, and this is from our diagnostic service too, maybe more than half of cases are not a clear-cut case of Melissococcus plutonius, the active agent. And so then if it's not bacterial, you have a totally different, more limited, I guess, set of options to treat and to do that. Yet, it may be something you could not have to burn the equipment or it might be not as contaminant on the surface. A lot of work. I can't give you direct advice on your setting.

[chuckling]

Jeff: My friend's going to do that now.

Jay: There's a lot of interest in it. There's a big project that Ramesh Sagili at Oregon State, just south of you, is starting up and a lot of fascinating research. Judy Chen in our lab, again, is a virus expert and is one of the ones tackling sacbrood and other viral diseases that can present themselves like EFB, the Varroa-related viruses that also amount to melted or patchy brood. It's an active topic for sure. Unfortunately, it looks like it's going to be different in some apiaries or parts of the country than others in terms of how you want to manage it.

Jeff: A lot of it's regulated by the state as well.

Becky: May I ask a question about how you set up some of your questions at the actual bee lab? Because I would assume you need healthy colonies to ask questions of or with, but then you also probably need infected colonies. Are you working on larger-scale questions outside of the lab? I'm asking, do you have a lot of sick colonies at the bee lab? [chuckles]

Jay: Yes, that's actually a good question and a good segue for my particular research midlife crisis is to find an antiviral treatment, working with Judy and others, or trying natural products, which is protein chemical, or sorry, pollen chemicals, nectar chemicals, but also some specific virus targeting small molecules that are churned around with things like COVID and SARS-CoV-2 and that.

We're really actively looking at that and our assay is to get, usually from Zach, who's a mite expert, we'll get his really-- We're going to get his crummiest colonies that are collapsing with mites and I take-- I can send you a video of this, but I basically take some plastic soda cups of bees out of those that are just loaded with deforming virus, knock them out with CO2 and put them in these little arenas and then feed them. We can do a dozen or so different chemicals in a setup and just see if we can rescue them, both as measured by just virus levels. We have a hospital apiary, the colonies that are kept alive with an infusion of fresh sacrificed bee brood from a healthy colony, and yet, they're loaded to the gills with all the bad things.

That's one. Yes, I would say that our apiaries, some of them are healthy and thriving and some looked pretty sad by anyone's measure. [chuckles] They provide mites-- We're also doing mites, Steve and Zach and others are doing projects with mite behavior and mites directly and of course, for that, you need to not treat much. Especially if you want mites in May when we want to extend our season and start working early, those mites came through winter or those colonies, sorry, came through winter with a good cohort of mites and so we have some colonies that are on constant life support, I'd say, to keep them alive.

Becky: I can just see the emails going through the lab saying, "Anybody have anything with chalkbrood? I really need some chalkbrood right now. Anybody see EFB?" [chuckles]

Jay: That does happen and viruses also, like someone will say, "I want to do a project on acute bee paralysis virus, what do you got?" "I'll give you this, but you have to promise not to put it outside."

[chuckling]

Jeff: That brings up a good question. These colonies, are they inside and contained or are they out on an island somewhere or are they in a secret location not to be disclosed?

Jay: They are deep in the confines of a federal research facility.

Jeff: Gives everyone a warm fuzzy.

Jay: Right. No, we don't work with any pathogens or bacteria that are controlled or these are all the usual suspects. You could get the same deforming virus in Minnesota or Washington. It's just that they're-- We do have some biosecurity. We have yards that we don't want to be heavily mite-infested and things like that for some of the scientists. We don't have a strict quarantine for these colonies. There's nothing in them that sadly isn't already circulating in beekeepers' populations.

Jeff: That is good to hear. There have been stories about, or maybe that was human viruses, the island at the very northern end of Long Island, used to be a research--

Jay: Oh, Plum Island, yes. We have colleagues on our campus who work at that biosafety lab two or three, two-level that are animal diseases that you certainly don't want in the herd. There are good reasons to have those containment facilities. We've shied away from that just from the regulation of running something like that. [chuckles] I'm happy just studying what's already there and not having to worry about those extra layers of security that we actively avoid.

Becky: I have to ask one really quick question. How do you clean your hive tools?

Jay: Oh, yes, that's good. This is really learning from Zach and his yards, which are, it's looking at mites and transferring. We'll do the [unintelligible 00:46:04], blast them with the smoker. If we're going yard to yard, we'll use isopropyl alcohol and rub them down, but not necessarily colony to colony. Then, of course, wear the rubber or thin lab gloves.

Becky: Nitrile.

Jay: Yes, nitrile gloves and strip those off between, just between yards, not between colonies. Again, assuming the bees are drifting enough within an apiary that we can't control all that, but that's really new. I never thought of that 10 years ago. [chuckles] It wasn't on my radar, but I think it's probably a good idea, especially if you're wanting to look at disease progression over time, the less of that instant transferring of bad things, the better.

Jeff: Jay, it's been a fascinating discussion. We'd love to have you back and not wait so long till the next time. Is there anything we haven't asked you about that you-- We're all queued up to tell our listeners?

Jay: The only thing I can think of, and that's again, a group project and I'm not really-- I'm on the outer fringes of the group is we have efforts to try to find new mite treatments for Varroa. It's the crisis that's here again and Steven Cook and Judy and others at universities are actively-- Have a really nice progression of tests that they can use to vet different chemicals mostly or avenues with current treatments like oxalic, but a lot of it is focused on promising new chemicals and to get them over the hump that they look safe to bees and efficient, efficacious for the mites and then hope that a company or somebody bites on them and does the last regulatory step, which we don't-- We're not business people, so we can't do that.

That's been really exciting. I know it's painfully slow for beekeepers to see that in their beekeeping lifetimes, but I think there are a couple that are moving through at a faster rate to regulation. Hopefully, for those who choose to use-- We think of this small molecule chemistry, not the organic acids, like real miticides, there should be a couple new things to rotate through with amitraz and to the extent they still work for fluvalinate. That's been and it's been, again, a group project and it seems, and there's Ohio State, Reed, Johnson, there's a whole bunch of people doing a parallel test, which is fun because you want it to be something that works well and also works in different states for you all.

Jeff: Oh, definitely. Jay, thank you for joining us and look forward to having you back.

[music]

Jay: Thanks to you two. I enjoyed your questions and your energy for bees and love your podcast. Thanks for the call.

Becky: Thanks, Jay.

Jeff: Jay is a valuable resource to the beekeeping community. I'm so glad he gets the word out on the research USDA ARS is doing in all of their labs in his monthly column, Bee Culture, and in his, as I said earlier, his various presentations. It's great.

[music]

Becky: It's pretty impressive, the body of work. It's one of those things that we don't think about a lot as beekeepers, but we have got great support with the federal government when it comes to bee research. It's collaborative, it's productive, it's really doing a lot of good stuff for us.

Jeff: That about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to follow us and rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts wherever you download and stream the show. Even better, write a review and let other beekeepers looking for a new podcast know what you like. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews along the top of any webpage. We want to thank our regular episode sponsors, Betterbee, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and Northern Bee Books for their generous support.

Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank you, the Beekeeping Today Podcast listener for joining us on this show. Feel free to leave us questions and comments at the 'Leave a Comment' section under each episode on the website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

[00:50:36] [END OF AUDIO]