NZ scientists hope to end AFB, a devasting bee disease

Scientists are working on an innovative new method to limit the spread of American Foulbrood, a pathogen feared by New Zealand beekeepers.

The team at the University of Canterbury hope to use viruses called “phages” to kill the bacteria linked to the disease, which infects bee larvae.

If achieved, it would be a significant breakthrough. American Foulbrood, or AFB, has been in New Zealand for more than 100 years and is a big problem for our honey industry.

Currently the only solution for beekeepers is to burn all infected hives – bees included.

Last weekend alone, Canterbury man Steven Brown had to destroy huge amounts of equipment – which he valued at $2 million – without compensation.

Footage shows him piling up hundreds of empty bee boxes into a bonfire. He later described himself as broken, saying his livelihood had gone “up in smoke”.

But Associate Professor Dr Heather Hendrickson at the University of Canterbury hopes a new study will help to prevent similar scenes in the future.

Her work is focused on bacteriophages, simply referred to as “phages”.

They are viruses that are harmless to humans but can kill bacteria. Helpfully, that includes paenibacillus larvae, the bacterium that causes AFB.

Researchers now hope to harness that ability with the aid of beekeeping.

“We can give beekeepers a way of putting something in their hive that's almost like a vaccine, in that it protects from the infection actually beginning,” Hendrickson said.

“Our hope is that we'll have a combination of bacteria phages that will 100% protect hives.”

It would give beekeepers the ability to protect other hives if one came down with AFB.

While research is still underway, the team says sugar packets are a possible method of delivery.

“That sugar packet would have phages embedded in it,” Hendrickson said.

“The nurse bees would actually take that sugar with the phages in it to the larvae and then feed it to the larvae, so the phages would be there as a little standing army in case the spores showed up.”

Postdoctoral fellow Danielle Kok added that, so far, tests had shown the phages were “very effective”.

She demonstrated that point with a petri dish, which contained several translucent areas – showing where the phages had killed the bacteria.

“That’s why you’ve got a full clearing, and there’s no bacteria left there at all,” she said.

The work is funded by a multi-million dollar grant – but it’s still in its early days, with field trials more than a year away.

Further work is also needed to assess whether it would be viable as a product.

“A really optimistic time frame would probably be four years from now, being in the position where we have a scaled-up usable product that we could then commercialise,” Hendrickson said.

If they succeed, there will be some happy beekeepers – and happy bees – with a new defence against the scourge of AFB.

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