"Bees could hold the key to preventing HIV transmission. Researchers have discovered that bee venom kills the virus while leaving body cells unharmed, which could lead to an anti-HIV vaginal gel and other treatments.

Scientists at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that melittin, a toxin found in bee venom, physically destroys the HIV virus, a breakthrough that could potentially lead to drugs that are immune to HIV resistance. The study was published Thursday in the journal Antiviral Therapy.

'Our hope is that in places where HIV is running rampant, people could use this as a preventative measure to stop the initial infection,' Joshua Hood, one of the authors of the study, said in a statement."


Study: Bee Venom Kills HIV
By Jason Koebler

"A cup of coffee doesn't just provide a jolt for people in the morning. Bees may crave a buzz too. Scientists have found that some plants, like the coffee plant (Coffea), use caffeine to manipulate the memory of bees. The nectar in their flowers holds low levels of caffeine that pollinators find highly rewarding.

Bitter-tasting caffeine primarily arose in plants as a toxic defense against herbivores like garden slugs. At high doses, caffeine can be toxic and repellent to pollinators.

However, at low concentrations, caffeine appears to have a secondary advantage, attracting honeybees and enhancing their long-term memory, said lead author Geraldine Wright, a neuroscientist at Newcastle University in England, whose study was published online March 7 in the journal Science."


Bees Buzzing on Caffeine
Christy Ullrich

"Honey developed in Israel--newly released to the US marketplace and abroad--may offer much needed fortification for those undergoing chemotherapy treatment. After 30 plus years of research, Life-Mel Honey shows promise for those undergoing the rigorous demands of cancer treatment by improving blood composition and overall wellbeing.

Based on the concept of apitherapy, where bees are feed medicinal herbs in order to produce a more potent byproduct, Life-Mel honey has shown considerable potential in clinical studies by lowering incidence of developing anemia, leucopenia, neutropenia and thrombocytopenia—costly byproducts of chemotherapy. Also in the study 64 percent of patient’s hemoglobin levels improved and 32 percent reported an enhanced quality of life."


Medicinal Honey from Israel May Hold Promise for Chemo Patients
By Julie A. Sergel

"Honey bees are big money makers for U.S. agriculture. These social and hardworking insects produce six hive products – honey, pollen, royal jelly, beeswax, propolis, and venom – all collected and used by people for various nutritional and therapeutic purposes.

Honey, of course, is the most well-known and economically important hive product. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Agriculture Statistics Service, honey bees made more than 148 million pounds of honey last year. With the cost of honey at a record high at about $1.73 per pound, that’s a value of over $256 million.

After honey, beeswax is the second most important hive product from an economic standpoint. The beeswax trade dates to ancient Greece and Rome, and in Medieval Europe, the substance was a unit of trade for taxes and other purposes. The market remains strong today. Beeswax is popular for making candles and as an ingredient in artists’ materials and in leather and wood polishes. The pharmaceutical industry uses the substance as a binding agent, time-release mechanism, and drug carrier. Beeswax is also one of the most commonly used waxes in cosmetics. The U.S. is a major producer of raw beeswax, as well as a worldwide supplier of refined beeswax.

But the greatest importance of honey bees to agriculture isn’t a product of the hive at all. It’s their work as crop pollinators. This agricultural benefit of honey bees is estimated to be between 10 and 20 times the total value of honey and beeswax. In fact, bee pollination accounts for about $15 billion in added crop value. Honey bees are like flying dollar bills buzzing over U.S. crops.

Luckily for the honey bees and the many crops that depend on them for pollination, FDA recently approved a new drug to control American foulbrood, a widespread bacterial disease that kills bee larvae."


New Drug Approved to Help Agriculture's Helpful Honey Bees
By Melanie McLean, DVM, Center for Veterinary Medicine, FDA

"In February 2006, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) became aware of a problem concerning adulteration of honey with fluoroquinolones. FDACS collected and analyzed samples of honey for residues of two of the fluoroquinolones of concern, ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin. The state reported that residues of these antibiotics were found in honey that was traced back to a
firm from the People's Republic of China.

Because of concerns about the presence of fluoroquinolones in the food supply, the U.S. is continuing to develop methods and strategies to detect illegal residues and prevent their introduction into the U.S. food supply.

In 2007, two shipments of products declared and labeled as "blended syrups" were analyzed and found to contain ciprofloxacin. For that reason, in December, 2007, blended syrups were added to this import alert as a product of concern."

Import Alert 36-04
U.S. Food and Drug Administration 10903 New Hampshire Avenue
Silver Spring, MD 20993
Ph. 1-888-INFO-FDA (1-888-463-6332)

"Honey is regulated by FDA as a food, and as such, it cannot be marketed in this country unless it is shown to be safe, sanitary, wholesome, and labeled in a truthful manner. So, FDA’s interest in the bee industry is basically two-fold: ensuring the quality and purity of honey and ensuring the health of honeybees. Honey is different from most food products that may contain animal drug residues. Unlike seafood, meat, and milk that contain large amounts of protein and fats, honey contains mostly sugars. It also has natural antimicrobial properties. As a result, many of the traditional approaches used to isolate drug residues do not work for honey. In 2006, researchers from FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine developed a provisional multi-residue method for 17 drugs in honey. The method uses liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, both to confirm the identity of the drug and to determine the amount of drug residue present. The USDA Beltsville Bee Laboratory, in an ongoing collaboration with CVM, is generating needed biologically incurred residue samples for the drugs in the multi-residue method.

CVM’s Office of Research was also involved in analyzing protein supplements fed to some honeybee colonies to determine whether they could have been contaminated with melamine. Melamine was involved in a recent large-scale pet food recall. Preliminary results found no evidence of melamine in any of the samples tested. Again, this work was done in cooperation with the Beltsville Bee Lab.

Other CVM offices are following this problem closely and are ready to assist the country’s beekeepers however they can when the causative agent of this syndrome is identified. If a medical need is identified, recent legislation will enable the Office of Minor Use and Minor Species (MUMS) Animal Drug Development and the Office of New Animal Drug Evaluation to encourage pharmaceutical sponsors to obtain approvals for new treatments. The MUMS Health Act was enacted into law on August 2, 2004. It helps make more medications legally available to veterinarians and animal owners to treat minor animal species and uncommon diseases in the major animal species. Some animals of agricultural importance are also minor species, and these include honeybees."

Mysterious Honeybee Deaths Leave Sting on Agriculture
by Walt D. Osborne, M.S., J.D., Assistant Editor
FDA Veterinarian Newsletter 2007 Volume XXII, No III

  "Traditionally, varroa mites have been controlled chemically. In fact, chemical-based, in-hive treatments have followed varroa everywhere the mite has been introduced. Pyrethroids, organophosphates, essential oils, and organic acids have been used by many countries to control varroa. Initially, the pyrethroid fluvalinate showed high levels of efficacy (>90%) against varroa mites. However, varroa mites have a demonstrated ability to become quickly resistant to this and other synthetic acaricides. This has made many acaricides useless in areas where varroa resistance to chemicals has developed. Further exacerbating this is the issue that many of the synthetic chemicals used inside of bee colonies to control varroa double as insecticides in other pest-management schemes. So, varroa mites have required beekeepers to put insecticides into insect colonies, the results of which are only just beginning to be understood. The effects of chemical varroa treatments on honey bees include reduced longevity of queen bees, reduced sperm loads in and longevity of drones, brood death, and reduced queen laying patterns. Many more effects are believed to exist.

"Because of the reduced efficacy of chemicals used to control varroa, attention has turned to the application of non-chemical methods for limiting varroa populations. For example, varroa are attracted disproportionately to drone brood. This has led some beekeepers to practice selective removal of drone brood from bee colonies after it has been capped. This practice eliminates a cohort of varroa mites from colonies. Also popular is the use of screened bottom boards to lower varroa mite populations. Although its level of efficacy is debated, replacing solid bottom boards of a bee colony with screen mesh can reduce varroa populations as much as 14%.

"Without question, the most significant advancement toward controlling varroa non-chemically has come in the realm of bee breeding. A number of bee defensive responses to varroa have been identified and selected for in natural and artificial breeding programs; the most notable of these are hygienic behavior and grooming behavior. Bees that exhibit grooming behavior use their legs to comb themselves. They do this both to themselves and to other bees in the colony. This behavior can increase the number of varroa that fall off of the bees, thus lowering the number of varroa in a colony.

"Hygienic behavior is the most studied of all of the natural defenses against varroa. Although it is not a behavior specifically targeting varroa, its manifestation can lower varroa mite populations within a colony. Bees that are hygienic can detect many problems that affect brood (American foulbrood, varroa, chalkbrood, etc.), even if the brood is capped, and remove the affected brood. Because varroa mites go into cells immediately prior to the cell being capped, hygienic bees are given little time to 'find' varroa before the cell is capped. As a result, hygienic bees have a refined ability to detect varroa in capped cells, remove the capping, and abort the brood. Often, this behavior can lead to the death of the mite, thus lowering varroa populations. It is interesting to note, a heightened form of hygienic behavior called 'varroa sensitive hygiene' (VSH) has been found in some bees. VSH bees are able to detect varroa in capped cells and remove only those varroa that are reproducing."


Publication Number: EENY-473
Authors: James D. Ellis and C.M. Zettel Nalen, University of Florida

"Waking up from surgery can be disorienting. One minute you're in an operating room counting backwards from 10, the next you're in the recovery ward sans appendix, tonsils, or wisdom teeth. And unlike getting up from a good night's sleep, where you know that you've been out for hours, waking from anesthesia feels like hardly any time has passed. Now, thanks to the humble honeybee (Apis mellifera), scientists are starting to understand this sense of time loss. New research shows that general anesthetics disrupt the social insect's circadian rhythm, or internal clock, delaying the onset of timed behaviors such as foraging and mucking up their sense of direction."

Drugged Honeybees Do the Time Warp
by Jane J. Lee