Honeybees are one of the most important pollinators in the environmental world, but lately the honeybee population has been threatened by many factors that could lead to their early demise.
The greatest threat that the honeybees seem to face is the virus-carrying parasite, the varroa mite. It has devastated the U.S. honeybee population since the 1980s. In 1996, half of the honeybee population in Mississippi River died due to the mite.
But there could be a way to save the honeybee population, and that is through mushroom.
In a Washington based bee laboratory, Steve Sheppard feed the honeybee's in their custody with murky brown water from the forests. This liquid is made out of mushroom juice.
Sheppard believes that the mushroom juice could be revolutionary.
"Beekeepers are running out of options," Sheppard, head of the Department of Entomology at Washington State University, added.
The honeybee business in the U.S. is very high; the animals pollinate $15 billion worth of crops in the U.S. alone, every year. But a third of all bee colonies have been in constant decline each year since 2006, the Department of Agriculture says.
It is very curious that the honeybees maybe saved by mushroom. Paul Tamets, a self-taught mycologist came up with the idea when one day and called Sheppard. Tamets observed the bees sucking on one of his mycelium in his backyard.
In his search for the answers as to why this happens, Tamets found out that there is a unique relationship between the two life forms.
The rare fungi, the mycelium, in Tamets research showed that it had abilities to fight viruses and diseases and Tamet wondered whether honeybee's see similar benefits in wood-rotting mushrooms.
Both Tamets and Sheppard tested their theory in mite infected bees, feeding them liquid extracts of forest mushroom. In their initial finding, five of the bee species reacted positively, lowering the honeybee's infection with the virus.
The mushroom juice seemed to have work; they killed the virus without harming the bees.
