The Heartland Bee Newsletter

November 2022 (25th edition)

National Honey Report: Florida

by USDA AMS
The month began with slightly higher temperatures than normal and variable amounts of rain mainly depending upon the path of afternoon thunderstorms. Bees were returning from the Dakotas and other northern areas in preparation for the beginning of Brazilian Pepper bloom around the middle of the month. Beekeepers were finishing mite treatments, and everything was going as planned. Then over the period of a few days just past the middle of the month, it became apparent that Florida was likely to be struck by a potential major Category 4 hurricane. The impact to Florida was devastating. Rainfall amounts for most of the state were much above normal in most areas because of the arrival of Hurricane Ian. The Panhandle area was the only part of Florida that did not receive excessive rainfall. After making landfall on September 28th around the Fort Myers area, Ian tracked to the northeast and exited the state near the Kennedy Space Center on September 29th. Most areas directly in the storms’ path received 10-20 inches of rain. Other parts of the state, except for the Panhandle, received 3-10 inches of rain or even locally higher amounts. Flooding from rainfall was a major issue in most of the state because of the generally flat topography in Florida. Storm surge in many locations also contributed to massive amounts of water accumulating, even in inland areas. Wind damage, especially on the barrier islands and the Fort Myers area was severe. Other areas further from the storm also experience major wind damage to property and crops. The storm track of Ian through Southwest and Central Florida affected many hives and beekeepers with both wind and flood damage to hives and potential food sources. Further south of the main storm track in the Immokalee and adjoining areas beekeepers gather between mid-September and mid-October each year to split hives which requires many new queens. This area of Florida becomes a nursery for the creation of new hives. These hives are created here not only for Florida beekeepers, but beekeepers from many other states. This area is home to large amounts of Brazilian Pepper which normally blooms during this time frame providing ample nutrition for the hives. Flooding from Ian was severe in this area. Honey that had not been pulled yet was lost as well as potentially thousands of hives. Some beekeepers are presently estimating their hive losses between 33% and as high as 100%. It will take some time to get an accurate assessment of losses in Florida since flooding continued for days after the storm and water and wind damage from the storm was widespread. More accurate storm damage estimates should be available by next month.
Read the complete monthly national honey report here: https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/fvmhoney.pdf

Thanks to a Honeycomb, We Know The Secret to The Wax Worm's Ability to Destroy Plastic

by Felicity Nelson

Researchers have identified a pair of enzymes in wax worm saliva that naturally break down a common form of plastic within a few hours at room temperature.

Polyethylene is among the most widely used plastics in the world, having uses in everything from food containers to shopping bags. Unfortunately, its robustness also makes it a stubbornly persistent pollutant – the polymer needs to be treated with high temperatures to kickstart the degradation process.

Wax worm saliva contains the only enzymes we know of that can work on untreated polyethylene, which makes these naturally occurring proteins potentially rather useful for recycling.

Federica Bertocchini, a molecular biologist and amateur beekeeper, accidentally discovered wax worms have a talent for degrading plastic a few years ago.

"At the end of the season, usually beekeepers put some empty beehives in a storage room, to put them back in the field in the spring," Bertocchini recently explained, "One year I did that, and I found my stored honeycombs plagued with wax worms."

She cleaned the honeycomb and put all the wax worms in a plastic bag. When she came back a short time later, she found the bag "riddled with holes".

Wax worms (Galleria mellonella) are larvae that eventually transform into short-lived wax moths. In the larval stage, the worms make themselves right at home in bee hives where they feed on wax and pollen.

After this chance discovery, Bertocchini and her team at Madrid's Margarita Salas Center for Biological Studies set to work analyzing the wax worm saliva, publishing their findings in Nature Communications.

The researchers used two methods: gel permeation chromatography, which separates molecules based on their size, and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, which identifies fragments of molecules based on their mass-charge ratio.

They confirmed that the saliva did in fact break the long hydrocarbon chains found in polyethylene into small, oxidized chains. They then used proteomic analyses to identify "a handful of enzymes" in the saliva, two of which were shown to oxidize polyethylene, the researchers write.

The researchers named these enzymes 'Demetra' and 'Ceres', after the ancient Greek and Roman goddesses of agriculture, respectively.

"To the best of our knowledge, these polyethyleneases are the first enzymes capable of producing such modifications on a polyethylene film working at room temperature and in a very short time," the researchers write. As these two enzymes overcome "the first and most difficult step in the degradation process", they add, the process could represent an "alternative paradigm" for waste management.

Although it's early days in investigations, these enzymes could potentially be mixed with water and poured over plastic in a waste management facility, Bertocchini said. They could be used in remote locations where waste facilities are not available, or even in individual homes.

As promising as their saliva is, wax worms aren't the only organisms known to degrade plastic. A 2021 study showed that microbes and bacteria in the oceans and the soil were evolving to eat plastic. In 2016, researchers reported a bacterium at a Japanese waste site that could break down polyethylene terephthalate, also known as PET or polyester. This later inspired scientists to create an enzyme that could quickly break down plastic drink bottles.

Around 400 million metric tons of plastic waste are generated every year worldwide, of which around 30 percent is in the form of polyethylene. Of the 7 billion tons generated by the world to date, only 10 percent has been recycled, leaving the world with a considerable legacy of waste.

Reducing consumption and reusing materials will undoubtedly limit the impact plastic waste has on the environment, but having a toolkit for cleaning up our mess could help us get on top of our plastic waste problem.