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posted by martyb on Monday October 08 2018, @10:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the plant-some-shrooms-around-your-hive dept.

How the mushroom dream of a 'long-haired hippie' could help save the world's bees

Years ago, in 1984, [Paul] Stamets had noticed a "continuous convoy of bees" traveling from a patch of mushrooms he was growing and his beehives. The bees actually moved wood chips to access his mushroom's mycelium, the branching fibers of fungus that look like cobwebs. "I could see them sipping on the droplets oozing from the mycelium," he said. They were after its sugar, he thought.

Decades later, he and a friend began a conversation about bee colony collapse that left Stamets, the owner of a mushroom mercantile, puzzling over a problem. Bees across the world have been disappearing at an alarming rate. Parasites like mites, fast-spreading viruses, agricultural chemicals and lack of forage area have stressed and threatened wild and commercial bees alike. Waking up one morning, "I connected the dots," he said. "Mycelium have sugars and antiviral properties," he said. What if it wasn't just sugar that was useful to those mushroom-suckling bees so long ago?

In research published Thursday [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-32194-8] [DX] in the journal Scientific Reports, Stamets turned intuition into reality. The paper describes how bees given a small amount of his mushroom mycelia extract exhibited remarkable reductions in the presence of viruses associated with parasitic mites that have been attacking, and infecting, bee colonies for decades.

[...] To test Stamets' theory, the researchers conducted two experiments: They separated two groups of mite-exposed bees into cages, feeding one group sugar syrup with a mushroom-based additive and the other, syrup without the additive. They also field-tested the extract in small, working bee colonies near [Washington State University]. For several virus strains, the extract "reduced the virus to almost nothing," said Brandon Hopkins, a WSU assistant research professor, another author of the paper. The promising results have opened the door to new inquiries.

Researchers are still trying to figure out how the mushroom extract works. The compound could be boosting bees' immune systems, making them more resistant to the virus. Or, the compound could be targeting the viruses themselves. "We don't know what's happening to cause the reduction. That's sort of our next step," Sheppard said. Because the extract can be added to syrups commercial beekeepers commonly use, researchers say the extract could be a practical solution that could scale quickly.

Paul Stamets is widely known for his work with medicinal mushrooms. He has written books such as Psilocybe Mushrooms & Their Allies, The Mushroom Cultivator, and Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms. Stamets has been awarded several patents related to the use of fungal products (such as mycelia) for antiviral and pesticidal properties.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 09 2018, @01:42AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 09 2018, @01:42AM (#746240)

    Once you have them, you can grow them in a closet with the light of a single led. Some have even done it a locked cabinet or enclosed opaque plastic tote with christmas lights.

    Tens of thousands of people are doing it without getting caught. Selling or distributing the grown mushrooms is what will get you caught.

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