Team:Tec-Chihuahua/test
June 15th
Center for Research in Food and Development A.C. (CIAD) visit
The main objective of the realization of this visit was to get to know and evaluate the ideal conditions with which M. plutonius and P. larvae grow and how are they handled in vitro. On another hand, we looked forward to knowing the practices of in vitro bee breeding.
Four members of the team had the opportunity to travel to Cuauhtémoc and attend this visit where we invested approximately four hours, first in the laboratory and then in the field. M. S. Alejandro Romo Chacón (who has participated in more than 20 scientific dissemination articles related to bees or
agriculture) welcomed us to the facilities and once we entered the laboratory he began to explain us about the bees’ life cycle and about some of the products and instruments beekeepers use to handle hives. Later, we were able to meet M.S.
Adrián Ponce de León, who is researching about foulbrood bacteria, and along with M.S. Romo, he explained us about procedures and safety considerations in order to manage the in vitro growth of P. larvae and M. plutonius.
The day of our visit, M.S. Romo and M.S. Ponce de León planned to go to the bee field and carry out bee larvae transferences, for its following in vitro breeding. This activity is one of the parts that implies our project once we reach the experimentation stage with the insects and M.S. Romo and M.S. Ponce de León attentively invited us to accompany them to the field, they even lent us suits and veils to interact directly with the bees! Previously we had consulted a
protocol that showed us all the details about the in vitro breeding of bees and by observing the techniques used by Ponce de León for the transference, we were able to validate and somehow, to begin with, the practice of this activity.
Interacting with the bees and being able to observe the composition of the bee boxes, the way in which the different foods were applied and the way in which beekeepers approached the bees were all key elements that allowed us to define the optimum application method of our product and helped us ensure its appropriate integration regarding each characteristic of the hive organization and the work done by beekeepers.
When returning to the CIAD facilities we had the opportunity to discuss the use of bees in the laboratory, how many bees were used? What was this number based on? Were the three R’s considered? The reality is that in Mexico there does not exist such regulations and the bioethical part of working with bees in the laboratory is quite unattended. We found this situation somewhat unsettling and it led us to perform a more extensive analysis of this topic. (consult the bioethical essay in)
M.S. Romo and M.S. Ponce de León could broaden their panorama on the research that is currently being done with bees and their diseases thanks to the sharing we made with them of our project and the allusion that synthetic biology is its fundamental part.
Thanks to this visit we were able to have our first real approach with bees, we knew the reality of working with them and working with the two strains according to a specialized laboratory that has already experienced the proper biosafety considerations. This visit gave us different data that is very useful for the whole experimental plan of our project, and besides that, we lived a little of what beekeepers live every day, like traveling inside the truck with many bees that stayed inside from the field and even experiencing some bee-stings. We were also able to capture amazing photos of the hives!
References
- Image retrieved from: Grupo Caresner S. de R.L de C.V. (2018). Museo Menonita. https://www.mexicodestinos.com/chihuahua/tours/museo-menonita.html
Follow us on
social media:
We thank our
sponsors:
