prevention

A Vaccine For Bees | Earth Wise

February 27, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The US has seen annual reductions in honey bee colonies since 2006. According to the USDA, there are many factors that have contributed to the decline. These include parasites, pests, insecticides, disease, and a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder in which worker bees abandon a hive and leave behind the queen.

One of major threats to bee colonies is American foulbrood disease, which is a bacterial condition that attacks bee larvae. It is highly contagious and has no cure. Until now, the only treatment method required burning the colony of infected bees along with the hives and equipment and treating nearby bee colonies with antibiotics.

Recently, the USDA has approved a conditional license for the world’s first vaccine for honey bees. The vaccine contains inactive bacteria of the type that causes American foulbrood disease.

The vaccine is incorporated into the royal jelly fed by worker bees to the queen bee. The queen ingests the feed and keeps some of vaccine in her ovaries. This gives bee larvae immunity to the disease as they hatch and thereby reduces death from the illness.

According to the California State Beekeepers Association, the new vaccine could be a major breakthrough for protecting bees. Preventing the infection in hives could avoid costly, destructive measures and allow the beekeepers to focus on other important elements of keeping bees healthy.

Bees as pollinators play a critical role in many ecosystems. For humankind, pollinators such as bees, birds, and bats are responsible for about a third of the world’s crop production.

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US approves world’s first vaccine for declining honey bees

Photo, posted June 6, 2022, courtesy of Bernd Thaller via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The Spotted Lantern Fly Is A Big Problem | Earth Wise

October 27, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The spotted lanternfly is an invasive pest from Asia that arrived in the United States seven years ago. It is a handsome and colorful insect, but it feeds on the sap of more than 70 plant species, leaving them susceptible to disease and destruction from other natural antagonists. It destroys fruit crops, trees, and plants by hopping from plant to plant, crop to crop, and tree to tree.

Several states have established quarantines aimed at preventing the spread of the insects. Pennsylvania, where they were first detected in the U.S., issued an Order of Quarantine and Treatment that imposes fines and even potential criminal penalties on anyone who intentionally moves a spotted lanternfly, at any stage of its life, from one sort of location to another. The insects hop and fly only short distances, but they can hitch a ride on vehicles, clothing, and other objects that people bring with them. They have now spread to at least nine states, primarily in the Northeast.

Lanternflies arrived in New York City last year and quickly made it to the Most Wanted List for environmentalists. The City’s Parks Department says: “If you see a spotted lanternfly, squish it, dispose of it, and report it to us.” New York’s Department of Agriculture has asked people in the Finger Lakes region, home of numerous vineyards, to collect specimens and provide specifics on where they were found.

Lanternflies are harmless to humans, but they threaten everything from oak, walnut, and poplar trees to grapes, almonds, and fruit orchards. As the species continues to spread across the country, federal and state officials have a unified message: if you come across a spotted lanternfly, kill it.

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Die, Beautiful Spotted Lanternfly, Die

Photo, posted August 30, 2018, courtesy of the USDA via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

More Extreme Weather | Earth Wise

November 23, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

If it seems like natural disasters happen more frequently than they used to, that is because they do. A new report from the United Nations entitled “The Human Cost of Disasters 2000-2019” provides the facts. From 2000 to 2019, there were 7,348 natural disasters around the world, compared with 4,212 natural disasters from 1980-1999.

The culprit is the climate. Climate-related disasters increased from 3,556 events during the 1980-1999 period to 6,681 in the past 20 years, again an increase of more than 3,000.

The global economic losses associated with natural disasters have been staggering. The earlier 20-year period saw $1.63 trillion in losses while the recent period resulted in $2.97 trillion in losses. Disasters killed 1.19 million people in the earlier period and 1.23 million in the recent period. It is a testimonial to the skills and efforts of disaster management agencies, civil protection departments, fire brigades, public health authorities, the Red Cross and Red Crescent, and many NGOs that the cost in human lives was not much greater over the past 20 years.

According to a statement from the UN, human society is being willfully destructive. They draw that conclusion in light of reviewing the disaster events over the past 20 years and seeing the failure of society to act on science and early warnings to invest in prevention, climate change adaptation, and disaster risk reduction.

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Extreme Weather Events Have Increased Significantly in the Last 20 Years

Photo, posted September 18, 2020, courtesy of the National Guard via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Cloudbursts And New York City

November 13, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Cloudbursts are intense rainstorms that drop enormous amounts of water over a short period of time. Climate change is expected to make cloudbursts occur more frequently. Cities around the world are looking for better ways to cope with weather phenomena like cloudbursts.

Saving African Cattle With Perfume

November 27, 2017 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Tsetse flies are widespread in Africa. They feed on blood and are the source of the dreaded sleeping sickness, an infection that can be lethal, damages the nervous system and, in its final stage, causes a dozy state, which gave the disease its name. Sleeping sickness is a real danger for people in tropical Africa, but tsetse flies can also transfer the disease to cattle. This leads to huge losses in milk, meat and manpower. The damage caused by the flies in Africa is estimated to be nearly $5 billion a year.

The Tick Project

September 12, 2016 By WAMC WEB

Tiny ticks are a big problem. Anyone taking a walk in the woods is advised to do a tick check. Ticks infect more than 325,000 people with Lyme disease each year, and this number continues to rise.

[Read more…] about The Tick Project

Trouble For Vultures

June 3, 2016 By WAMC WEB

When we think of vultures, we picture big, ugly birds circling over a carcass in the desert. They are a stereotypical harbinger of death. But in many parts of the world, vultures are in danger of disappearing. Our knee-jerk reaction might well be “good riddance”, but as is the case for pretty much all participants in ecosystems, vultures have an important role to play. And when they aren’t around to play that role, bad things can happen.

[Read more…] about Trouble For Vultures

Preventing Toxic Algal Blooms

May 12, 2016 By WAMC WEB

We have talked about the growing problem of toxic algal blooms on a number of occasions. The increasing occurrence of these blooms has been associated with rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels as well as the presence of wastewater nutrients and agricultural fertilizers in rivers, lakes and reservoirs. The most notable incident occurred in the summer of 2014, when algae contamination in Lake Erie left 400,000 residents in Ohio and Michigan without water for 72 hours.