New course trains veterinary students to protect pollinators

New federal regulations require veterinarians around the country to examine and treat honeybee colonies, and training for this new job is needed. That’s why Cornell veterinarian Dr. Robin Radcliffe partnered with Cornell faculty members to offer the first honeybee health course at Cornell for veterinary students.Beyond the fact that bees are invertebrates and possess many different physiological systems compared with vertebrates, honeybee care is “more herd health, and has a lot of parallels to population medicine and public health. Our patient is not the single bee, but the whole colony – biologically the complex communication and cooperation among bees known as the ‘superorganism.’”Radcliffe teaches students what normal “brood” looks like – the eggs and developing pupae – so they will recognize signs of the America foulbrood, a bacteria that will kill larvae and easily spread from hive to hive. Students are also schooled in the honeybee’s greatest foe, the varroa mite. These invasive parasites from China arrived in New York in 1995. They feed off adult bees and their brood, causing the entire colony to weaken and, if left untreated, collapse.