Difference between revisions of "Team:Tec-Chihuahua/test"

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  <h4 align="justify">July 19<sup>th</sup><br>Video call with FAI presidential staff member Lorenzo Della Morte</h4><br>
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      <h4 align="justify">April 28<sup>th</sup><br>Meeting with Mr. Guillermo Rodríguez</h4>
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   <div class="a"><p align="justify">Looking forward to expanding our international reach, we encountered the possibility to contact the Italian Federation of Beekeepers (FAI). Successfully, after exchanging some emails we were able to schedule a virtual meeting with the FAI presidential staff member Lorenzo Della Morte. We were very excited to have the opportunity to share and also nurture our project with insights, concerns and regulations that came from the city that hosts the headquarters of many important multinational food companies and agencies, such as the United Nations Food and &nbsp;Agriculture &nbsp;Organization &nbsp;(FAO), &nbsp;the &nbsp;International &nbsp;Fund &nbsp;for</p></div></div><br>
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   <div class="a"><p align="justify"><br>Viana and Ana Laura had the opportunity to travel to Cuauhtémoc, a city specialized in fruit growing; production and exportation of apples, peaches, strawberries, walnuts, among many others.<sup>1</sup> Thanks to Viana, who is native from this city, we were able to get to contact this beekeeper. Mr. Rodríguez is the president of the association of beekeepers in the city and we saw an enormous opportunity in talking to him. This was our very first direct approach with the beekeeper’s community! &nbsp;We &nbsp;were &nbsp;very &nbsp;excited &nbsp;to &nbsp;start &nbsp;getting &nbsp;to &nbsp;know them. &nbsp;What &nbsp;would they think about our ideas? Would they be interested in our</p></div>
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<p align="justify">Agricultural Development (IFAD) and The World Food Programme (WFP). Eight members of the team could attend this important reunion that lasted approximately 40 minutes.</p>
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<p align="justify">project? How many things would they have to tell us? Our project was about to begin its transformation path.</p><br>
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<div class="a"><p align="justify"><br>This enriching talk lasted approximately 1 hour 15 minutes and different topics were discussed. We learned many general characteristics of bees' lives thanks to the great experience of the beekeeper: The different varieties of bees that exist, specific tasks of each type of bee and the joint work bees and beekeepers do to ensure pollination.</p></div><br>
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<div class="a"><p align="justify">Regarding the existing methods against Foulbrood, Mr. Rodríguez mentioned how SAGARPA (National Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fishing, and Food) does not allow the usage of chemical contaminants in beehives because wastes may end up in honey flows. Mr. Rodríguez mentioned how beekeepers sometimes use extracts of rosemary or oregano against Foulbrood, but it is always difficult for them to know what dose to add and ensure it is adequate for fighting the diseases and at the same time does not destabilize the hive. On another hand, he mentioned that the method of burning beehives results very expensive for them. Currently, in Cuauhtémoc, there is almost no presence of American Foulbrood, since, in the past, many sick hives were exposed to this burning method, then the disease decreased. On the other hand, European foulbrood is most commonly found in Cuauhtemoc.</p></div><br>
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<div class="a"><p align="justify">The beekeeper emphasized how a natural product against Foulbrood is needed, so there are not left residues in the honey and he also highlighted how beekeeping varies around the world and sometimes there are specific necessities for each region.</p></div><br>
 
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   <div class="a"><p align="justify">FAI President Raffaele Cirone and his staff member Lorenzo Della Morte shared with us very invaluable information about how foulbrood is experienced in Italy:</p></div></div>
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   <div class="a"><p align="justify">Thanks to the sharing we made with the beekeeper of our project, he was able to have a new panorama of beekeeping, and how emerging technologies, in this case, synthetic biology, can accurately respond to specific problematics and can relegate past methods that imply many setbacks.</p></div><br>
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  <div class="a"><p align="justify">Mr. Rodríguez kindly invited us to present our project with the Cuauhtémoc beekeepers association and commented us about M.C. Alejandro Romo who has done different investigations on the diseases and who we would talk with later in this story.</p></div><br>
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   <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/d/dc/T--Tec-Chihuahua--80.png"></div>
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  <div class="a"><p align="justify">Getting to know real experiences of the treatment methods used against our interest diseases helped us to better measure the severity of the problem and the obstacles with which beekeepers have to fight to keep their bees’ welfare.<br></p></div></div><br>
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<h4 align="justify"><br>References</h4>
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<ol>
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  <li>Soto, A. (2017). <i>Cuauhtémoc, región en crecimiento económico</i>. Retrieved from http://referente.mx/@Almer/cuauhtemoc-region-en-crecimiento-economico</li>
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  <li>Image retrieved from: <i>Visita Chihuahua. (2018). Chihuahua y sus alrededores</i>. http://www.visita-chihuahua.com/index.php/2015-05-06-09-42-18</li>
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<div class="a"><p align="justify">Foulbrood incidence rate in Italy usually has a seasonal trend with the largest number of registered infections during the second semester of the year (July-December). Regarding the impact and incidence of these two diseases on Italian beekeeping, FAI Italian Federation of Beekeepers has consulted the National Centre of Reference on bee diseases, who elaborated an official data reporting 51 complaints of colony infections from 7 on the 20 Italian Regions, for the year 2017. The number of infected and then destroyed colonies is a few tens of units compared to the 1.300.000 colonies, which constitute the Italian beekeeping heritage.</p></div><br>
 
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<div class="a"><p align="justify">From the FAI point of view, the data is not to be considered statistically reliable both for the low number of registered cases and for the missing complaints. In fact, in order to avoid the Veterinarian Police controls, many beekeepers often don’t report the infection and directly destroy the colonies in secret. According to FAI estimates the incidence rate of foulbrood can’t be lower than the 10-20% of the Italian beekeeping heritage in total.</p></div><br>
 
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<p align="justify">The treatment methods used in Italy to treat AFB and EFB are the following:</p>
 
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  <li><b>For AFB</b>:<br>
 
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  <p align="justify">Must be compulsorily notifiable to the Health Authority. It involves serious restrictive measures in accordance with the Veterinarian Police Regulation (DPR 8/2/1954, n.320). Apart from the Beekeeping Best Practices (BBP) there are no official and authorized control methodologies so that the infected colonies must be burned. Furthermore, the apiary is subject to health constraints until the recovery plan has been ascertained. All the beekeeper’s instruments must be disinfected and sterilized.</p></li>
 
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  <li><b>For EFB</b>:<br>
 
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  <p align="justify">Must be compulsorily notifiable to the Health Authority. It involves serious restrictive measures in accordance with the Veterinarian Police Regulation (DPR 8/2/1954, n.320). Differently, from the American foulbrood (AFB) regulation, the European foulbrood (EFB), has a less restricted regulation. In fact, the infected colonies must be distinguished in two different clusters related to their clinical picture:</p></li>
 
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      <li><i>Severely compromised colonies</i>: In this case, the approach is the same as the one for AFB and it lies in destroying both the colony and the hive and in disinfecting and sterilizing the beekeeper’s instruments.</li>
 
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      <li><i>Not compromised colonies but with clinical signs</i>: In this case, the “swarming technique” is carried out to overcome the disease. It consists of:</li>
 
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        <li>Removing the infected combs from the hive.</li>
 
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        <li>Adding adult bees from external healthy colonies.</li>
 
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<div class="a"><p align="justify">The apiary will be seized for at least 9 days and until the positive outcome of the treatment, in order to assess the efficacy of the “swarming technique”. Anyway, also, in this case, the beekeeper can ask the destruction of all the affected colonies to the veterinarian authority.</p></div><br>
 
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<div class="a"><p align="justify">In both the cases AFB and EFB, the use of antibiotics is not allowed in Italy because of its ineffectiveness and to prevent the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains.</p></div><br>
 
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<div class="a">p align="justify">FAI emphasized a very important point that seems not only to apply in Italy but throughout the whole world: there are no different solutions to AFB and EFB diseases these days and the legislative tools are often perceived as repressive, so many beekeepers don’t notify the infection in their apiary, destroying the infected colonies and concealing the fact. This is one of the most relevant problems for the health and statistical assessment studies.</p></div><br>
 
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<div class="a"><p align="justify">After Mr. Della Morte learned about our project and the scopes of synthetic biology regarding beekeeping, he considered our proposal as a possibility of prevention method against the diseases. Our product would help beekeepers do not have to lose all their beehives and save money.</p></div><br>
 
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<div class="a"><p align="justify">After the video call, Mr. Raffaele Cirone and his staff reflected on our project information and kindly sent us their final insights:</p></div><br>
 
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<div class="a"><p align="justify">The Italian Federation of Beekeepers believes that AMPABEE Project is a new and innovative approach to such incurable diseases as AFB and EFB. Preventing the spread of these bacteria and increasing the immune system of bee larvae is an important goal to achieve in the health bee risk prevent. In particular, nowadays the only preventing tools are the Beekeeping Best Practices (BBP) which depends on the personal application beekeepers carry out. In this respect, FAI considers essential to test this research on the pure Italian <i>Apis mellifera ligustica</i>, as it is the most widespread in the world. In this regard, FAI will collaborate and provide the necessary support, remaining at iGEM team Tec-Chihuahua disposal in case of need for further information for the research project and programme. FAI is totally sure that such a research could find a spreading interest in the beekeeping world at different scales. FAI can support the product commercialization thanks to the FAI’s Service Company and the FAI trade partnerships covering the entire national territory.</p></div><br>
 
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Revision as of 16:14, 14 October 2018

Erwinions
















April 28th
Meeting with Mr. Guillermo Rodríguez


Viana and Ana Laura had the opportunity to travel to Cuauhtémoc, a city specialized in fruit growing; production and exportation of apples, peaches, strawberries, walnuts, among many others.1 Thanks to Viana, who is native from this city, we were able to get to contact this beekeeper. Mr. Rodríguez is the president of the association of beekeepers in the city and we saw an enormous opportunity in talking to him. This was our very first direct approach with the beekeeper’s community!  We  were  very  excited  to  start  getting  to  know them.  What  would they think about our ideas? Would they be interested in our

project? How many things would they have to tell us? Our project was about to begin its transformation path.



This enriching talk lasted approximately 1 hour 15 minutes and different topics were discussed. We learned many general characteristics of bees' lives thanks to the great experience of the beekeeper: The different varieties of bees that exist, specific tasks of each type of bee and the joint work bees and beekeepers do to ensure pollination.


Regarding the existing methods against Foulbrood, Mr. Rodríguez mentioned how SAGARPA (National Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fishing, and Food) does not allow the usage of chemical contaminants in beehives because wastes may end up in honey flows. Mr. Rodríguez mentioned how beekeepers sometimes use extracts of rosemary or oregano against Foulbrood, but it is always difficult for them to know what dose to add and ensure it is adequate for fighting the diseases and at the same time does not destabilize the hive. On another hand, he mentioned that the method of burning beehives results very expensive for them. Currently, in Cuauhtémoc, there is almost no presence of American Foulbrood, since, in the past, many sick hives were exposed to this burning method, then the disease decreased. On the other hand, European foulbrood is most commonly found in Cuauhtemoc.


The beekeeper emphasized how a natural product against Foulbrood is needed, so there are not left residues in the honey and he also highlighted how beekeeping varies around the world and sometimes there are specific necessities for each region.


Thanks to the sharing we made with the beekeeper of our project, he was able to have a new panorama of beekeeping, and how emerging technologies, in this case, synthetic biology, can accurately respond to specific problematics and can relegate past methods that imply many setbacks.


Mr. Rodríguez kindly invited us to present our project with the Cuauhtémoc beekeepers association and commented us about M.C. Alejandro Romo who has done different investigations on the diseases and who we would talk with later in this story.


Getting to know real experiences of the treatment methods used against our interest diseases helped us to better measure the severity of the problem and the obstacles with which beekeepers have to fight to keep their bees’ welfare.



References

  1. Soto, A. (2017). Cuauhtémoc, región en crecimiento económico. Retrieved from http://referente.mx/@Almer/cuauhtemoc-region-en-crecimiento-economico
  2. Image retrieved from: Visita Chihuahua. (2018). Chihuahua y sus alrededores. http://www.visita-chihuahua.com/index.php/2015-05-06-09-42-18

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