The vaccine will help protect honeybee populations from American Foulbrood disease.

As global honeybee populations are ravaged by various factors, the world’s scientific and agricultural communities have been working to find ways to protect and preserve the bees and prevent a major ecological disaster. One of the concerns threatening bees is American Foulbrood disease, a bacterial infection that attacks and destroys bee larvae. Biotech company Dalan Animal Health has developed a solution to this concern.

Dalan has received conditional approval from the US Department of Agriculture to manufacture and distribute a vaccine they’ve developed for Foulbrood disease. The vaccine contains trace amounts of the invading bacteria, which is mixed into a hive queen’s royal jelly and fed to her. This passes its immunity-boosting properties to her larvae, strengthening the entire hive against the disease. The vaccine is completely natural, and can be safely involved in the production of organic foods.

The U.S. has granted a conditional license for a honeybee vaccine that fights an infectious disease that can devastate entire hives. The queen bee will ingest the vaccine, granting offspring immunity.https://t.co/ge0UlskGMR

— NPR (@NPR) January 6, 2023

“This is an exciting step forward for beekeepers, as we rely on antibiotic treatment that has limited effectiveness and requires lots of time and energy to apply to our hives,” Tauzer Apiaries, a board member of the California State Beekeepers Association, said in a news release from Dalan. “If we can prevent an infection in our hives, we can avoid costly treatments and focus our energy on other important elements of keeping our bees healthy.”