Method and system for protecting honey bees from pesticides
AssigneeSeed Health, Inc.
InventorJoseph E. Kovarik
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and system for the treatment of honey bees (Apis mellifera), bats, and butterflies protects them from various life threatening conditions, including Colony Collapse Disorder and in particular, provides honey bees with the ability to assimilate and degrade pesticides such as neonicotinoids and fipronil.
Claims19
A method for providing a honey bee with the ability to assimilate pesticides, comprising, inoculating a honey bee with a culture of pesticide degrading bacteria, wherein the pesticide degrading bacteria include genes whose expression by the pesticide degrading bacteria results in the degradation of the pesticide, said pesticide degrading bacteria being modified to include said genes using a clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) CRISPR associated protein (Cas) system or using a clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) from Prevotella and Francisella 1 (Cpf1) nuclease, said pesticide degrading bacteria selected from the group consisting of L. rhamnosus and L. plantarum.
A method for providing a honey bee with the ability to assimilate pesticides, comprising, providing a honey bee with a culture of pesticide degrading bacteria, wherein the pesticide degrading bacteria include genes whose expression by the pesticide degrading bacteria results in the degradation of the pesticide, wherein said step of providing comprises using bacteriophage as a delivery vehicle for said genes, and wherein said pesticide degrading bacteria comprises L. rhamnosus.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.