Australian bee dog, Bazz.

Australian reporter Clint Jasper put together a great story on another bee dog, Bazz, used to detect honey bee colonies infected by AFB (American foulbrood) bacteria.  It includes an audio interview with beekeeper/handler Josh Kennett discussing the challenge of developing the bee suit that Bazz wears while he's working in the bee yard to avoid stings as well as scent training Bazz, initiated by trainer Martin Dominick.  Martin Dominick also trained the springer spaniel Elroy for scenting AFB in Australia, mentioned in an earlier post.  Bazz is the second black labrador I've heard about employed for scenting AFB.  See an earlier post about the black lab, Clinker, from the U.S.

The article is accessible by clicking the link below.

Dog suits up for a day in the hives - ABC Rural (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Canadian province Alberta is at the forefront of honey production and bee research

The world's largest bee was spotted one fine June day in Felher, Alberta getting ready for the big honey flow.

In addition to housing the world's largest bee, Alberta is also the 5th largest honey producing region in the world at present, producing on average 30.5 million pounds each year (Alberta agriculture and rural development) primarily from wildflower, canola, clover, and alfalfa nectar.  Commercial beekeepers from the region supply pollination services to blueberries right next door in British Colombia and to canola crops in the southern part of the province.  Fairview, Alberta is home to an internationally recognized commercial beekeeping certificate program, offered by Grand Prairie Regional College that provides 11 months of education and paid work experience focused on training individuals for careers in the bee industry.  This program originally was offered from 1981 to 1999 and only recently resumed in 2012, currently instructed by Eric Stromgren.  Information on the course can be found via their link below.  

But wait!   There's more!  Albert is also home to Beaverlodge Research Farm and the Canadian National Bee Diagnostic Center (NBDC), a facility born in 2012 via collaborative efforts between Grand Prairie Regional College and the national Beaverlodge Research Farm.   This is, after all, the reason I'm bragging about Alberta on BeeBugs.  If you're a Canadian beekeeper and want to know what's bugging your bees, you can send a sample to the NBDC.  They offer a range of diagnostic services including ultrastructure of comb and brood as well as molecular diagnostics.  They operate out of a fantastic, modern research lab located on the Beaverlodge Research Farm.  offering microscopy and molecular diagnostic services to bee keepers interested to identify virus, bacteria, fungi and protozoa micro-parasites in their bees.   A link to their website is available by clicking their logo:  

So, if you're considering a trip to Canada, why not consider Alberta and go on a quest for current and historical bee-centric sights, eh?

Links:

GPRC Commercial Beekeeping Certificate Program

Canadian National Bee Diagnostic Center

Beaver Lodge Research Farm

Can you identify bee guts infected with Nosema?

Last week I needed to collect a fresh Nosema ceranae sample from a honey bee to use in an experiment.  We generally have a high prevalence of Nosema ceranae in the colonies here at the Bee Research Lab in Maryland, and a heavily infected individual is not too difficult to locate.  But, how do I tell if a bee is infected or not?  Some people say they can tell by looking at the midgut region of the bee's digestive tract whether or not they are infected by Nosema.  The midgut is the specific region of the honey bee gut that both species of Nosema (Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae) infect.

Do you think you can identify a Nosema infection by looking at the midgut?

Here's the test

• Adult workers were collected from an apparently healthy colony on July 3rd (that's right; no sign of dysentery, nosemosis, excessive bee poop on the porch, etc.) and brought to the lab.

• Bees were cold anesthetized on ice.

• Digestive tracts were then removed from 9 individual bees, shown below with both light (left) and dark (right) background.

Can you identify which of the 9 midguts shown are infected by Nosema ceranae?

 

Hints 

1.  At least one midgut shown is heavily infected with about 50 million Nosema spores.

2.  At least one midgut shown has no detectable Nosema spores.

Got your answer?  Give up???  Scroll down for the answers.

Here are light microscope images (400x) of the contents from each midgut shown above:

Only midgut #2 is infected with Nosema ceranae.  In some (#1, #4, #8, #9) large pollen grains are visible.  Some cellular debris (including what look to be lipid spheres) can be seen in the remaining images.  If you answered this correctly you were either a) lucky or b) know something I don't and were lucky.

What does this mean?

Gross examination of the midgut itself is not a reliable way to identify infected individuals.  I can never tell with any measure of confidence whether or not a midgut is infected, and I've looked at a lot of midguts!  It has been suggested that a field test can be used to diagnose Nosema infected midguts by visual inspection, looking for a light color and swelling.  This may be true for pure Nosema apis infections (with which I don't have experience), but is not true for the now most prevalent species N. ceranae and is also probably not true for mixed species infections.  As shown above, the lightest colored midguts (#5, #8, #9) were not infected and midguts equally large (#1, #7, #9) as the infected one (#2) were not infected.

How do I know this is Nosema ceranae?  

Because I extracted DNA from this sample and used a molecular diagnostic test called polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with empirically determined species-specific primers that can differentiate Nosema ceranae from Nosema apis. (See Table S1 below from R. Schwarz and J. Evans. 2013. Single and mixed-species trypanosome and microsporidia infections elicit distinct, ephemeral cellular and humoral immune responses in honey bees.  Developmental and Comparative Immunology 40, 300-310. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dci.2013.03.010 ).  Although N. ceranae spores are slightly smaller than N. apis, molecular diagnostics are the only way Nosema species identification can be reliably made in my opinion.