Honeybees run vaccination programmes, too

AN OLD SAW has it that there is nothing new under the sun. But it may still come as a surprise that human beings are not alone in having invented vaccination. Work just published in the by Gyan Harwood of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, confirms that honeybees got there first. It also suggests that they run what look like the equivalent of prime-boost childhood vaccination programmes.Being gregarious, honeybees are at constant risk of diseases sweeping through their hives. Most animals which live in crowded conditions have particularly robust immune systems, so it long puzzled entomologists that honeybees do not. Indeed, they actually possess fewer immune-related genes than most solitary bees.