3 Research Paper

How Can Biotechnology Help Honey Bees Meet Consumer Demands For Honey?

Welcome to the Hive – (Introduction)

Honey bees have a long history of providing beneficial services to the earth.  From the well-known civilizations of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece, honey bees have had their share of recognition by partaking in the culture’s mythology.  Considered the first beekeepers in history, Ancient Egyptians practiced beekeeping especially in Lower Egypt due to the land’s considerable irrigation and vast fields of flowering plants.  The Egyptians utilized the honey bee’s wonderful services for food and medicine.  In Egyptian culture, gods were associated with honey bees, and even the sanctuary in which they worshipped the Lord of the Underworld Osiris was known as the Mansion of the Bees.  Similarly, in Greek culture, honey bees received their share of recognition.  In mythology, honey was the food of the gods and was used to preserve the remains of those who had passed.  During 1622, the fruitful and diligent honey bee went global and reached North America.  From there, honey bees have continued to spread their services throughout the world.  Now, after millions of years in service to the Earth, honey bees are in danger.  Humans have built their culture, lifestyle, and economy upon the existence of honey bees.  Is there a way for us to help honey bees in their time of need?  The answer is yes, by using the wonders of science in a field known as biotechnology.  Biotechnology has the extraordinary potential to preserve the honey bee population while satisfying consumer demands for honey with the production of artificial honey, alternatives to pesticide and monocultures, and genetically modified bees, which all help create a harmony between the environment and the human economy.

What’s the Buzz – (Background)

The significance of honey bees to mankind can be summed up by a statement often attributed to Albert Einstein.  “If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years left to live.”  There is much truth in this statement.  Bees, specifically honey bees, provide many services on which humans rely, such as beeswax, royal jelly, propolis, pollen, and honey.  Beeswax is widely used in cosmetics and hygiene products, and royal jelly is used in skin care products.  Both royal jelly and propolis are like a bee’s healthcare plan against viruses, and humans have used them in medicine.  Honey bees help disperse pollen and pollinate the vegetation of Earth.  Last but not least, honey bees produce honey, a natural sweetener and topical ointment.  Needless to say, honey bees are amazing.  However, even with their amazing hive mind, honey bees are in grave danger.

In recent years, scientists have witnessed a dramatic decline in the honey bee population and coined the term Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).  According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, “Colony Collapse Disorder is the phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a colony disappear and leave behind a queen, plenty of food and a few nurse bees to care for the remaining immature bees and the queen.” [1]  Without her valuable workers, a queen cannot rule the kingdom efficiently, and so the kingdom must perish.  In the winter of 2006-2007, the EPA received reports from some beekeepers about unusually high losses of 30 to 90 percent of their beehives.  Nearly 50 percent of the affected colonies expressed symptoms not consistent with any known causes of bee death.  The main symptoms of the affected colony included a sudden loss of the worker population with few bees found near the colony, the queen with her young remaining in the colony, and an abundant amount of pollen and honey reserves in the colony. [2]  Eventually, a hive cannot sustain itself without worker bees, and the hive would die.  The combination of events resulting in the death of a bee colony was known as CCD.  Nonetheless, honey bees are not the only ones negatively affected by CCD.

Humans depend on honey bees.  Bees provide products like honey around which humans have created an economy.  According to a 2016 Gro Intelligence article about the decline of US honey production stated, “Although the number of honey bee colonies has increased from two decades ago, the yield per hive has declined. As a result of lower production, as well as the higher demand for honey, both the producer price and the retail price of honey in the US has more than doubled since 2005.” [3]  In 1990, the US produced more than twice the amount of honey it imported.  However, in 2015, the US was importing more than twice as much honey as it produced.  Over the years, the US has been consuming more honey by using honey as an alternative sweetener in tea or as a spread on toast.  With rising demands for honey, manufacturers have found alternate ways to distribute enough honey to appease its consumers while the honey bee population and honey yield continues declining.

Oh, Honey – (Artificial Honey)

Importing is a solution to distribute honey to its consumers, but this solution is not the best because importing from faraway land masses costs a lot to import different kinds of honey from different faraway countries.  Another solution besides importing would be to make artificial honey.  Natural honey contains only pure honey made by bees from the nectar of flowers as opposed to artificial honey which is honey with added sugar, molasses, syrups, and other similar products which are not floral nectar.  One benefit of producing artificial honey is the ability to control its taste.  Honey bees often take nectar from the flowers that are available to them, but those flowers may not necessarily produce the best tasting honey for humans.  A Scientific American article stated, “From wheat flowers we find a honey which has a taste resembling bitter almonds, and honey from asparagus flowers is most unpalatable.  Honey taken from the colza plant is of an oily nature, and that taken from onions has the taste of the latter.  In such cases, the honey is much improved by the addition of inverted sugar.” [4]  Humans have the ability to use less honey to achieve a quality best suited to their needs. But this isn’t the best solution for preserving the honey bee population while sustaining the human economy.

When the idea of artificial honey started to gain public attention, there was speculation about the effect artificial honey had on human health.  A Food Safety News (FSN) article claimed, “More than three-fourths of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores isn’t exactly what the bees produce, according to testing done exclusively for Food Safety News.” [5]  Then, the article continues and explains the real honey contains pollen which comes from the fact that raw honey contains a lot of pollen, which bees collect along with the nectar they turn into honey.  The story goes on and begins to imply that artificial honey was an attempt to prevent detection of illegal honey from China.  From there, people began to write about their own experiences and the harmful effects of “fake” honey.  For instance, a website called Food Renegade expressed its outrage that “76% of grocery store ‘honey’ had no pollen in it!” [6]  Fortunately, the National Public Radio (NPR) read the FSN article and reminded, “Food Safety News is published by a lawyer who represents plaintiffs in lawsuits against food manufacturers and processors.”  “Bottom line: Supermarket honey doesn’t have pollen, but you can still call it honey. Call it filtered honey. And the lack of pollen says nothing about where it may have come from.” [7]  The FSN article should be taken with a grain of salt as there may and seems to be biased against the production of artificial honey.  NPR disproved many of FSN’s claims, but there are still many blogs where the idea of artificial honey is seen as a poison to humans.  Aside from the controversy of artificial honey regarding human health, there is an economic benefit of artificial honey.  With artificial honey, more honey could be produced from fewer amounts of natural honey which allows humans to meet consumers demand.  Nonetheless, artificial honey is not the ideal solution for sustaining the human economy while preserving the honey bee population.

By producing artificial honey, the human economy benefits, but the environment, especially the honey bee population, does not benefit as much.  The primary issue with a dramatically declining honey bee population is not just about the honey production; rather, the main problem is pollination.  In one of its articles, The Guardian talked about the importance of bees and wrote, “Bees pollinate a third of everything we eat and play a vital role in sustaining the planet’s ecosystems. Some 84% of the crops grown for human consumption – around 400 different types of plants – need bees and other insects to pollinate them to increase their yields and quality.” [8]  Various types of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and plants like sunflowers, cocoa beans, and coffee need pollinators in order to yield a healthy and delicious product which humans can use for consumption.  Pollination is an essential service honey bees provide for humans, and honey is only a sweet by-product of their niche.  With the help of honey bees, the human economy is able to flourish and meet the consumer demand for food and delicacies besides honey.  Yet, the declining honey bee population due to CCD has caused supply to decrease as consumer demand continues to increase, resulting in inflation.  The root of honey bee population decline is CCD.

Honey, I Shrunk the Bee Population – (Human Influences and Alternatives)

What is the cause of CCD in honey bees?  Some speculate that a parasite like Varroa destructor mite, but there is also speculation of a virus such as Israeli Acute Paralysis virus.  Others have blamed the cause on crop monocultures and harmful pesticides.  In an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) about honey bee decline, Pennsylvania State University wrote, “Scientists now feel that CCD and even the overall honey bee decline is likely the result of a number of factors working together that stress the bees to the point of weakening and often killing the colony.” [9]  Currently, there is no one direct cause which can be held fully responsible for CCD.  Humans cannot cure CCD, but they can do their best to help honey bees combat the epidemic which is ravaging the honey bee population.  CCD is partially the fault of mankind because scientists have connected human influences like crop monocultures and pesticides to the downfall of honey bees.

Crop monocultures are the practice of producing or growing a single crop.  Monocultures are extremely profitable since they maximize profits and minimize costs.  By cultivating only one type of crop, this helps maximize the efficiency of farming and is simpler to produce one type of crop in terms of knowledge and experience in order to be successful.  However, there are usually drawbacks when someone tries to take the easy way out.  Monocultures are especially undesirable for honey bees.  According to a Scientific American article about the monocultures and honey bees, the author talks about how honey bees communicate through dance called the “waggle-dance” to give directions to the colony about a patch of flowers it has found.  “By planting crops in monoculture, we’ve increased the scale of flower patches so much that a honey bee colony can’t effectively search across many patches: they’re stuck in just one.  That patch blooms for a short period of time, and then the bees have nothing else to eat.” [10]  From a honey bee’s point of view, the entire colony is trapped in a food desert where only one type of food is available to them.  Monocultures don’t provide honey bees with a diverse choice of pollen and nectar which causes insufficient nutrients and leaves honey bees vulnerable to diseases.  Is an economic gain really more important than the health of our honey bees?  In a Quarterly Journal of Economics article about economic profitability versus ecological collapse, Martin Weitzman wrote, “When humans artificially create or maintain genetically homogeneous host-crop target areas, they are also creating or maintaining breeding grounds with higher probabilities that potentially lethal pathogens will emerge, some of which, by the laws of chance, could wipe out the very monocultures that spawned or supported them.” (Weitzman, 238) [11]  The risk of cultivating a monoculture over acres of land is the destruction of the entire monoculture through one species of insect who happen to enjoy that very crop and decided to take advantage of the buffet set appealing before them.  Of course, farmers do realize this, so in order to preserve their monocultures, farmers have resorted to using pesticides to lessen the risk of cultivating monocultures.

Pesticides are artificial chemicals used to protect cultivated plants against harmful organisms. However, there are some pesticides which are detrimental to honey bees and other pollinators.  One such harmful pesticide is neonicotinoid.  Honey bees come in contact with this pesticide when collecting pollen or via contaminated water.  Then, they bring the toxic materials into the hive where the neonicotinoid can accumulate and slowly kill the whole colony.  In high enough doses, it can lead to convulsions, paralysis, and death.  Even with a non-lethal dosage, neonicotinoids are still fatal to honey bees as the toxins target their central nervous system, affect their navigational capabilities, and impair their memory.  Essentially, honey bees can fly out, forget how to navigate, and die in the outside world dominated by mankind’s greedy influences.  If enough worker bees die, the hive will become incapable of sustaining itself, and all the other honey bees left in the colony will perish too.  In addition, concentrations of neonicotinoids have been found in honey.  In a New Scientist article, Debora MacKenzie notes, “Starting in 2012, a team led by Alex Aebi of the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, asked traveling colleagues, friends and relatives to bring back honey when they went abroad.  In three years they amassed 198 samples from every continent except Antarctica and tested them for neonicotinoids.  They found that three-quarters of the samples contained at least one of the five neonicotinoid pesticides.  Of those, nearly half contained between two and five different neonicotinoids.” [12]  If there are concentrations of neonicotinoids in honey, who knows how many hives were fatally affected?  This is a global issue.  Honey bees all over the world are being exposed to this toxic pesticide, and other organisms who may depend on the honey bee’s honey are accumulating neonicotinoids with each consumption.  Furthermore, The Scientist wrote an article stating, “Researchers found that the bees collected neonicotinoid-contaminated pollen not from nearby treated crops but from wildflowers that tend to live near crops, suggesting that the neonicotinoids, which are water-soluble, are getting into the water supply and thereby into untreated plants.” [13]  Neonicotinoid is an invisible epidemic for honey bees.  Honey bees cannot tell whether or not a plant contains pesticide.  Due to crop monocultures, pesticides like neonicotinoids are being used to prevent insect predators from destroying acres of profit.

There must be some alternative to the selfishness of humans and their decision to put the economy before the environment.  Depending on the plant and the type of neonicotinoid used, there are many bee-friendly chemical alternatives.  Organizations like the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) have looked into chemical alternatives and have even created a chart of recommendations for alternatives in a range of agricultural groups.  For example, according to the chart, grapevines are sprayed with the neonicotinoid, thiamethoxam, to prevent leafhoppers and S. titanus from ruining the crop.  PAN suggests using the indoxacarb and chlorpyrifos-ethyl as a chemical alternative. [14]  Besides chemical alternatives, there are also natural alternatives which were used by human ancestors to grow and maintain crops such as crop rotation, polyculture, trap crops, organic farming, and biological pest control.  Crop rotation and polyculture are beneficial to honey bees as it provides a diverse selection of plants to pollinate which allows honey bees to produce food with different kinds of nutrition.  Additionally, honey bees do not need to be moved by trucks once a blooming season is over as another crop will dominate another part of the land.  Trap crops can be used to attract insect predators away from valuable crops and could help significantly reduce the use of pesticides all while promoting organic farming.  Organic farming promotes sustainability and mostly prohibits the use of controversial modern advancements such as synthetic pesticides, antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, and growth hormones.  Organic farming uses biological pest control as a method controlling pests through natural mechanisms and typically, requires active human management.  There is a variety of incredible alternatives to help the environment, but most of these alternatives benefit the environment more than the economy.  For a summary, artificial honey benefits the economy more than the environment, yet alternatives to crop monoculture and pesticide benefit the environment more than the economy.  Is there a solution which would benefit both the environment and the economy?  The answer is controversial, but it could be the key to bringing the environment and the human economy together.

GMBees: Swarming with Controversy – (Genetically Modified honey bees)

To increase and maintain the production of honey, one must increase the honey bees who produce the honey.  Human influences like crop monoculture and pesticide can be controlled by themselves, but parasites, diseases, and viruses are not easily within human control.  However, with recent advancements in genetic modification such as the genome project and CRISPR-Cas9, human control over nature does not seem as far-fetched as it once was.  Considering that honey bee genome has already been sequenced, scientists are not far from their goal to genetically modify honey bees to combat the natural causes of CCD.  Since its founding in 2007, a research company known as Beeologics has been developing an antiviral treatment called “Remebee” for honey bees affected by viruses such as the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV).  According to an interview in an ISRAEL21c article, “ ‘So far, there is no solution because no one has even come to an agreement as to what the problem is,’ adds Nitzan Paldi, chief technology officer of Beeologics.” [15]  As a result, Paldi and his team needed to isolate one of the causes of CCD, so they could focus their project and its resources on that one cause.  “At Beeologics, scientists are convinced that IAPV is the primary cause of CCD. ‘If you look how the disease spreads, it’s very reminiscent of flu. Flu also starts in the fall and hits hard in the winter, the same is true of this bee virus,’ explains Paldi.  ‘It’s very contagious like a flu. In our opinion, we have something that’s interacting very strongly with the environment to cause CCD. It could be interacting with pesticides, with improper nutrition, general stress – but that’s not what’s killing the bees. What’s killing them is a virus and we believe that virus is IAPV.’”  By focusing on IAPV, Beeologics developed “Remebee” which utilizes a mechanism termed RNA interference (RNAi) or gene silencing which prevents gene expression.  Essentially, the honey bees eat Remebee and acquire antiviral abilities and evolve their inherent defenses against viruses.  A HoneyColony article about GMO and honey bees wrote, “It was once thought changes needed to occur within the DNA to be passed down through generations. It is now clear that changes to micro-RNA can be inherited without any DNA involvement. Recent research has also provided the first example of ingested plant micro-RNA surviving digestion and influencing human cell function.” [16]  Even after Remebee’s successful trials, public skepticism remained. It is both amazing and frightening that science has advanced to the point where we can manipulate nature.  Genetically modified honey bees have a neat potential to help honey bees combat CCD.  However, the real concern is not can but should.  Should humans genetically modify honey bees?  The controversy lies in the ethics and morals of individuals.  Furthermore, there is controversy about the company who owns Beeologics.

In October 2011, an agricultural biotechnology corporation known as Monsanto purchased Beeologics causing a stir among beekeepers.  Monsanto has not had the best reputation for being the largest supplier of pesticides, genetically engineered seeds, and agrochemicals.  According to the previously referenced HoneyColong article, “Monsanto’s seed monopoly has grown so powerful that they control the genetics of nearly 90 percent of five major commodity crops: corn, soybeans, cotton, canola, and sugar beets!  They make gobs of cash and yet sue farmers both in the United States and in struggling international communities. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto admits, the company filed 144 lawsuits against America’s farmers, while settling another 700 out of court for undisclosed amounts.  Due to these aggressive lawsuits, Monsanto has created an atmosphere of fear in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy.” [HunCol-16]  It is wrong to create something that cannot be controlled except by suing people ridiculous amounts of money.  Many people wonder if Monsanto is actually investing in bee health or if this investment is just another opportunity to make money off honey bees.

To Bee, or Not to Bee – (Conclusion)

Biotechnology is a two-edged sword.  It is because of biotechnology that synthetic pesticides, like neonicotinoids, exist and are used despite the harmful effects it has on honey bees.  In his manifesto The Industrial Revolution and Its Future Ted Kaczynski begins by writing, “The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.” (Kaczynski, 1) [17]   Humankind’s Industrial Revolution has extended its consequences far beyond the human race and have affected the honey bee race.  Human influences like crop monoculture and neonicotinoids play major roles in the collapse of honey bee colonies.  Nevertheless, like a two-edged sword, there is a side of biotechnology which can be used to benefit the honey bees.  With biotechnology, artificial honey can be produced to further sustain the human economy in a time where natural honey is not as abundant and can offer chemical alternatives to harmful pesticides.  Fortunately, humankind is taking action in fighting alongside the honey bees against CCD.  In 2013, the European Union (EU) and non-EU countries are beginning to understand the dire consequences of pesticides and have restricted the use of certain neonicotinoids.  During 2014 in the United States, President Barack Obama issued a memorandum establishing the Pollinator Health Task Force in order to formulate a strategy to promote the health of honey bees and other pollinators. [18]  With all of these huge advancements towards combating CCD, normal citizens of the Earth can help honey bees too.  Planting gardens of diverse flowers for honey bees will allow them to escape monocultures and obtain the necessary nutrients needed to have a hive thrive.  Simply, spreading awareness can go a long way.  As more people learn about the benefits of honey bees and their fight for survival, individuals can come together and do their part for the environment.  The only way to save the human economy and the environment is to save the honey bees responsible for giving life to this Earth.  Through artificial honey, alternatives to human influences, and genetically modified honey bees, biotechnology can bring harmony to the environment and the human economy. honey bees have provided so much for humankind.  Maybe, just maybe, humankind could redeem themselves by saving the honey bees, so they too can join forces to save the environment.  If there’s a bee, there’s a way.