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Montana apiary hopeful for future with new honey bee vaccine

Laurel apiary hopeful for future with new honey bee vaccine
Posted at 10:00 AM, Jan 17, 2023
and last updated 2023-01-17 12:00:45-05

LAUREL - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved the first honey bee vaccine to target American foulbrood, an aggressive bacterial disease that quickly jumps from hive to hive and has no cure.

It's a step toward a stronger apiary industry, which plays a big role in Montana, one of the country's largest honey producers.

The bees at the Drange Apiary in Laurel are currently "taking a break" owner Jodie Drange said but later this week they will be heading to California to start pollinating almond orchards.

It is just one of the many ways honeybees play an essential part in the ecosystem.

“Just because they make honey isn’t only what they do, they pollinate. They pollinate the crops, so the farmers need us to come out and bring our bees," Drange said.

Drange also said they haven't had to deal with a lot of American foulbrood in their hives, which affects larvea, but they are still looking forward to what this vaccine means.

Drange doesn't plan on administering the vaccine, which she said will be fed to worker bees, then will be eaten by the queen bee through royal jelly, which is secreted from the heads of worker bees.

So, when Drange purchases queens, they will benefit from the vaccine.

"What we’re going to see is our queen breeders, where we are buying 5,000 queens a year, will actually inoculate their hives and then we’ll start seeing that when we buy our queens,” she said.

According to the biotech company behind the vaccine, Dalan Animal Health, it will be available for purchase later this year.

“If we’ve got this maybe it's going to cure European foulbrood, maybe we’ll find another cure for the mites or another disease that we are dealing with, with our bees," Drange said.

In 2015, Montana ranked second in honey production nationwide, according to the USDA.