Читать книгу Honey Bee Medicine for the Veterinary Practitioner - Группа авторов - Страница 34

Modern apiarists practice pest/disease control, close colony spacing, swarm control, queen rearing, mating control (sometimes), annual requeening of colonies, migratory beekeeping, queen imports, drone reduction, and various other alterations of the bee's natural biology. These apiculture practices tend to limit natural selection and to disrupt the hard‐won adaptations of A. mellifera; they impact both the genes and the lifestyle of the honey bee (Neumann and Blacquière 2016). Now, what can be done from an animal husbandry and animal health perspective to reverse such trends?

The bee doctor must be prepared to examine honey bee health through a new lens that takes a holistic approach to medicine – one that features an understanding of and appreciation for the health of honey bees living in nature. In some parts of the world, beekeepers are already looking at beekeeping less as a process of domestication that forces the production of honey, wax, propolis, and pollination at great cost to colonies and more as the stewardship of a natural living system. The global decline in bee health is a direct consequence of man's disruption of this system: the introduction of exotic parasites and pathogens, the rise in disease virulence driven by beekeeping practices, and the evolution of drug resistance caused by indiscriminate treatments of colonies. Indeed, it is the pharmaceutical‐centric approach to preventative care for honey bees that is the fundamental reason behind the inclusion of honey bees among the food‐producing animals in North America that now fall under FDA regulations requiring the services of a veterinarian for antibiotic use. A key feature of a healthy system is achieving a balance between the host and the pathogen that promotes host resistance and pathogen avirulence – we can find this balance by promoting good genes and a good lifestyle in the bees.

Figure 1.7 Polyandry, or the multiple matings of a queen with drones from different patrilines, has been associated with colony vigor and improved winter survival. The health benefits of polyandry are linked to improved foraging rates, greater brood production, lower mite infestations, and the possession of rare alleles important for control of infectious disease.