Mushrooms Could be the Key to Saving the Bees and Fighting Disease
Bees play a crucial role in our everyday lives whether we realize it or not. These insects help to pollinate plants which are needed for large scale agriculture. Every almond you eat is pollinated by a bee. Bees can pollinate up to 1000 flowers per day. It is estimated that one third of the food you eat daily has been produced due to bees and other pollinating birds and insects.
The importance of bees to the ecosystem and to our everyday lives is clear. But now bees are posed with a great threat, dying off in massive numbers around the world due to viruses spread by a very small parasite called Varroa destructor. These parasites spread RNA viruses which cause great harm to honeybee colonies, the worst and most commonly known is the deformed wing virus. This virus is responsible for the majority of honeybee deaths world wide, it prevents bees from flying, weakens their immune system, and cuts their lifespan almost in half. The majority of our food source is dependent upon bees, their decreasing numbers world wide poses a major threat to our environment and food source.
Due to the massive shortage of bees China has actually started to pollinate their food crops by hand. This involves humans manually pollinating each individual flower one at a time with a small paint brush like tool. This method of pollinating crops has shown to be effective but it requires companies to pay workers for their labor which will ultimately drive up the cost of many foods, impacting the economy and our everyday lives.
Current research is showing that mushrooms could play a vital role in helping to save bees while also protecting our agriculture, economy and ecosystem. Two mushrooms that scientists are particularly interested about belong to the genera Fomes and Ganoderma, or more commonly referred to as amadou and reishi. These are polypore mushrooms and they grow on the roots of trees and rotting wood. Their extracts have been used throughout history in traditional Chinese medicine and can also be found in many health and herbal supplement stores.
These mushrooms have been shown to have a significant antiviral effect which can play a role in saving bees from the deformed wing virus. Mycologist Paul Stamets first theorized that mushrooms growing on trees could potentially aid in the immune health of bees. This theory along with his passion for studying mushrooms eventually brought him to partner up Washington State University, one of the world’s leading researchers in the study of bees. Alongside researches from the university and the US Department of Agriculture, Paul Stamets conducted a multi-year experiment of the effects these mushrooms had on the immune system and overall health of bees. They dosed sugar-water feeders with mushroom extracts from mycelium and then fed this to their bees.
The results of the study showed that amadou mushrooms reduced the deformed wing virus by more than 800-fold. Reshi mushrooms reduced the Lake Sinai virus by more than 4500-fold. These benefits only required one dose of mycelium extracts.
The exact mechanism of action of these mycelium extracts is not known. Currently the leading hypothesis is that these extracts provide essential nutrients needed by the immune system to activate gene sequences which then attack viruses and also provide host defense immunity from future infection. These results suggest that a natural compound found in nature can be more effective than a pure synthesized pharmaceutical drug. These mycelium extracts are the first treatment discovered to help bees fight off these deadly viruses.
With viruses being the main topic of discussion in the media and the scientific community now more than ever we have to support funding and research into the study of mushrooms and their effect on the immune system. Due to Paul Stamets and the research carried out at Washington State University it has been proven that mushrooms have a potent antiviral effect within bees. Clinical trials on the use of psilocybin mushrooms in humans are currently being carried out by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and John Hopkins University for the treatment of anxiety, depression, PTSD and smoking cessation. These studies show promising results. It is clear that mushrooms have real therapeutic potential both in bees and in humans. Nature has provided us with all the tools we as a species need to live happy and healthy lives. With more research and studies being focused on the medicinal benefits of mushrooms the future looks a lot brighter for bees, humans and the overall health of the environment.
