Veterinary students at the University of Minnesota are embracing an unlikely patient: the honeybee. As part of a growing shift in veterinary education, members of the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Bee Club are learning how to diagnose and treat bee illnesses, marking the rise of bee medicine as a legitimate veterinary discipline.
“Bees are not really the first animal you think of when it comes to treating animals as a veterinarian,” says Haley Rubia, a third-year student at the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM). But that perception is changing.
Bees, like other animals, are susceptible to bacterial and viral infections. Because they live communally, diseases can spread quickly through a hive. And because bees are so central to the general ecosystem, a bee epidemic could have serious consequences.
“They are the pollinators for our environment,” says Livia Gans, a third-year student and Bee Club co-founder. “This means that they help provide us with the food that we eat and the food for animals."
Getting the club started
Until 2017, beekeepers typically treated hives with over-the-counter remedies. That changed when new federal regulations, aimed at curbing antibiotic misuse in agriculture, reclassified bees as livestock. Now, antibiotics require a veterinary prescription.
“The only problem with that,” says Dr. Melinda Wilkins, an associate professor at CVM and the club’s faculty advisor, “is that veterinarians didn’t know anything about bees.”
Wilkins herself is an exception. Ten years ago, when she lived in Michigan, she had a small apple orchard, and she began learning about the bees who lived there. Shortly after the new regulations went into effect, Michigan State, where she was a faculty member, became one of the first veterinary schools to start teaching courses in bee medicine. When Wilkins came to Minnesota, she brought her interest in bees with her, and when Rubia and Gans learned about bee medicine and decided to start their own club, they sought her out.
With Wilkins’ help, Rubia and Gans connected with the Bee Lab in the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Studies. Scientists at the Bee Lab study honeybees, and members of the UMN Extension Program do community outreach and lead public education programs. Last March, the Lab worked with the Minnesota Honey Producers Association to get funding for two hives for the students. Two Bee Lab educators, Katie Lee and Becky Masterman, are teaching them how to care for the bees.
Interest in the club exceeded expectations, with more than 40 students signing up. Club members now tend the hives in shifts, learning about bee behavior, disease management, and honey harvesting.
CVM is expanding its curriculum to include a two-week honeybee medicine rotation for fourth-year students.
Bee medicine is still so new that it’s unlikely that it could sustain a full-time practice, but both Gans and Rubia have fallen in love with bees and plan to continue working with them once they graduate, even if it’s just a few days a month.
“I thought it was going to be terrifying,” Gans says, “but once you’re out there with the hive and there’s bees buzzing around you, it’s almost peaceful. It’s like meditation. They’re wonderful little animals.”
This is based on a story from the College of Veterinary Medicine.
