Honeybees can use different ways of dealing with their infections
and one example is they collect the resins from trees
and they mix it with beeswax and then line their own nests with it
and it has been found that this reduces the growth of all sorts of pathogens in their hives,
including the varroa mites that are causing a lot of trouble at the moment.
It has also been shown that when they consume some of it
it reduces disease in their own bodies,
so there are different ways they can use this.
And one of the interesting things about that is, when you think about how medicine evolves,
is that that sticky stuff [resin] is really annoying when you are a beekeeper
and what beekeepers over time unintentionally have done is
selected against the use of this medicine by selecting for bees that use less of this resin.
By breeding bees that no longer use this natural form of medicine
we could unintentionally actually have created a problem
by allowing more diseases to circulate in these honeybee colonies.
Now people are saying maybe we should let these bees collect these medicines
that they have been using for millions of years
so it can actually benefit the colonies and therefore also the beekeepers.