When you ’re sick , you go see the Dr. , and then , illegible prescription slip in bridge player , pick up some medicinal drug at the drug memory . But what can a bee do when it ’s feeling bad ? It ’s not like they can stop by CVS on the way back to the hive . agree to new research , though , bees do have a position to turn to when they ’re sick .
Since plants ca n’t plunk up and run away from danger , they want other ways of defend themselves . Some grow thick bark or thorns , while others bring on justificatory chemical substance that make them unpalatable or toxic to the creature that might eat them . Some of these chemical weapons can also gain animals , and biologistLeif Richardsonhas encounter that a handful of justificatory chemical compound found in floral ambrosia and pollen canhelp bees struggle infections .
Richardson and a team of researchers from Dartmouth College and the University of Massachusetts discovered this by getting some bees sickish and then offering different cures for what ailed them . They infected a chemical group of eastern bumblebees ( Bombus impatiens ) with an enteric parasite calledCrithidia bombi , which can shorten bees ’ lifespans , vary their behaviour , and hinder their facts of life , and which has been fingered as one of the suspects in the decline of North American bumblebees . Then , they course the bees sugary solutions that contained one of eight different nectar chemicals found in the plant they commonly pollinate .
A week afterwards , they euthanized the bee , dissected them and counted the parasite cells in their backbone . Half of the ambrosia compounds had some effect and reduced the bees ’ parasite loads . The best “ drug ” in the flowered music locker was anabasine , which edit out the parasite cargo by more than 80 percent . The bee that eat the anabasine — an alkaloid find in tobacco plants — were more potential to be completely parasite - gratuitous after a week than their friends that ate the unmixed sugar solution . The researchers think the chemical substance might be toxic to the parasites or disrupt their transition from one life stage to another , or it could boost the bees ' immune response .
Unfortunately , clearing aCrithidiainfection quickly did n’t help private bees that much , and they still died rather than bee that did n’t have the sponge . Consuming the chemical and fighting the infection still benefit a bee ’s settlement , though . Crithidialeaps from host to host through an infected bee ’s feces , and can chop-chop propagate through a beehive that ’s been contaminated or reach other hives via polluted flowers . By reducing the volume of infection in individual bees , the researchers say , the ambrosia chemicals make parasite transmitting in and between hives hard .
rafts of medications have side effects , and since these nectar compounds are defenses for plants , the researchers expected there would be some cost to ware them as well as a benefit . After raising groups of infected and clean distaff humblebee on either a evident sugar solution or one with anabasine in it , though , they found that the chemical substance did n’t have any contrary event on the bee ’ lifespans and the only trouble it caused was a short delay in gain the egg - laying stage .
The scientists are n’t sure if bumblebees advisedly seek out anabasine and other parasite - fighting compounds when they ’re nauseated , but other work suggest that the bees do switch up the flowers they visit when they ’re carrying parasite and that dear bees “ self - medicate ” by collecting more anti - fungal plant resins after an infection in their beehive . The researchers think that if the bee do sleep with to look for certain chemical substance to fight infection , then the plants that contain them could be planted near struggling bee populations to move as floral pharmacies that provide preventative medicine .
