Honey Bees are Microbe Whisperers too!
New Video by JeM YinJoy, shows how
the hive selects mites with "Good"
viruses protect them from the "Bad"
ones.
ORIGINAL PAINTING "The Bee Charmer" By JeM YinJoy.
Honey Bees Microbe Whisper to Mite-Borne Viruses
Hi! It’s JeM YinJoy, and I am giving love to the honey bees.
The little pollinators on our planet that help fruit trees, flowers, herbs and vegetables flourish, and turn the nectar they collect from flowers into honey.
Honey bees feed us and sweeten our lives with deliciousness as well as fascinate us with their ways of communicating with their hive sisters. This beautiful community is threatened by the infestation of mites that carry viruses, especially deadly strains of virus that can decimate a hive.
But honey bees have a way of microbe whispering that protects them from the deadly strains of viruses that are carried by mites. And this is how they do it!
Super Infection Exclusion
A beekeeper, Ron Hoskins, cultivated a type of grooming behavior in his hives, where it appears that the worker bees detect and remove mites from the larvae that become infected. But they keep mites in the hive that have non-lethal viruses. These non-lethal viruses are called “Type B” in a study by virologist Dr. Declan Schoeder that is described in this BBC video.
Dr. Schoeder studied the viruses that co-exist harmlessly within the hives cultivated by Ron Hoskins. He discovered that the bees were doing a type of self-immunization with these mites carrying the Type B virus. The virologist calls this phenomenon, Super Infection Exclusion. While the mites with non-harmful viruses are present, no other mites (presumably with lethal viruses) have a chance to take hold of the hive and thus they protect the hive with this superinfection exclusion method.
Bee Animal Guide Lesson
The lesson from the bees is clear. These insects are whispering to the good mite viruses to protect them. They teach us that it is possible to communicate with microbial communities, as they have, to manage the microbial populations in their hive. Taking these lessons from the bees, if we tune into our own body’s ecology, we can whisper to our microbial communities, such as those in our gut, to ask them to keep the bad guys away too. Microbial communities have their own mass consciousness, such as those microbiomes that support our digestive tract. The bees teach us the vast possibilities of communicating with that microbial consciousness, to improve our health, as they have improved their own.
by JeM YinJoy, Ph.D.
Bee Video
The video posted here, shows how bees teach us to be Microbe Whisperers, by their own example. It also pays a tribute to the scientists who discovered this super infection exclusion phenomenon, and to “The Secret Life of Bees”, the film adaptation of the novel by Sue Monk Kidd.
Thank you for your visit and enjoy the film! JeM YinJoy
