AI transcript
0:00:02 (upbeat music)
0:00:07 Pushkin.
0:00:10 If you’re looking for a new podcast,
0:00:12 but don’t know where to start,
0:00:14 here’s one you can add to your list.
0:00:16 The Jordan Harbinger Show.
0:00:18 The Jordan Harbinger Show is aimed
0:00:20 at making you a better informed critical thinker
0:00:23 so you can get a sense of how the world actually works
0:00:26 and come to your own conclusions about what’s happening.
0:00:29 Jordan talks to everyone from neuroscientists to CEOs
0:00:32 to astronauts, authors, and performers.
0:00:33 You might enjoy Jordan’s interview
0:00:35 with historian Yuval Noah Harari,
0:00:39 the author of “Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind”
0:00:42 or his episode with fool me once author,
0:00:43 Kelly Richmond Pope,
0:00:46 on how fraud became a trillion dollar industry.
0:00:48 Whether Jordan’s conducting an interview
0:00:50 or giving advice to a listener,
0:00:52 you’ll find something useful that you can apply
0:00:54 to your own life in every episode
0:00:56 of the Jordan Harbinger Show.
0:00:58 That could mean learning how to ask for advice
0:01:00 the right way or it could just be discovering
0:01:04 a slight mindset tweak that changes how you see the world.
0:01:07 Search for the Jordan Harbinger Show,
0:01:12 that’s H-A-R-B-I-N-G-E-R on Apple Podcasts,
0:01:17 Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:01:21 How many times have you been stung?
0:01:23 – Many.
0:01:24 – 10?
0:01:26 – Oh yeah, yeah, 100 probably.
0:01:29 Each season I get a few bee stunks.
0:01:33 I mean, we do kind of a nasty thing to the beehive,
0:01:37 we still wear larvae to check the immune priming effects
0:01:41 and they don’t like it, obviously, I can’t blame them.
0:01:43 – So you’re telling me you had it coming?
0:01:45 – Yes, I had it coming.
0:01:48 I also sell it to all my students, that’s okay,
0:01:52 that’s normal, just let me know if you develop allergies.
0:01:53 – Does it make it harder to get students
0:01:55 to come work with you?
0:01:57 – No, no, not at all.
0:02:00 (upbeat music)
0:02:05 – I’m Jacob Goldstein and this is What’s Your Problem,
0:02:07 the show where I talk to people
0:02:10 who are trying to make technological progress.
0:02:12 I have two guests today.
0:02:15 One is Dahlia Freituck, that’s who you just heard.
0:02:17 The other is Annetta Kleiser.
0:02:19 Together they are the co-founders of a company
0:02:21 called Dahlian Animal Health.
0:02:26 And they have brought to market a vaccine for bees.
0:02:29 It is the first ever vaccine for any insect.
0:02:32 And their story is interesting and important
0:02:35 on a number of levels, including, but not limited to,
0:02:38 how do you even make a vaccine for an insect?
0:02:42 Also what’s going on with bees these days anyways?
0:02:44 And if you can vaccinate bees,
0:02:47 what other insects might you wanna vaccinate?
0:02:52 Annetta Kleiser is the CEO.
0:02:55 She spent her career working in technology transfer,
0:02:58 basically figuring out how to turn academics ideas
0:03:01 into real world products and businesses.
0:03:04 Later in the show we’ll have my interview with Annetta
0:03:07 about testing the vaccine and bringing it to market
0:03:11 and also what’s happening with bees and the bee industry,
0:03:12 such as it is.
0:03:15 But first we’re gonna play my conversation with Dahlia
0:03:18 about the basic research she did
0:03:21 that led to this idea of a vaccine for bees.
0:03:25 – So when I started to work on insect immunity
0:03:29 two decades ago, there was not a lot known about it.
0:03:33 So it was a bit, it was really like, I would say,
0:03:35 in kinder shoes.
0:03:37 – Kinder shoes like baby shoes, yeah.
0:03:41 – Baby shoes I think is an English word for it, I’m sorry.
0:03:45 But it was really like the beginnings of it,
0:03:48 basically it was the stage where something is happening,
0:03:50 but we don’t know what it is.
0:03:53 – At some point you get interested in this question
0:03:56 of can bees acquire immunity?
0:03:59 Can they become immune based on exposure to a pathogen?
0:04:00 How does that arise?
0:04:02 How does that question arise?
0:04:05 – Yeah, that question actually arrived during my PhD time
0:04:07 when I worked with moths.
0:04:09 – With moths, okay.
0:04:11 – Yeah, it was before honeybees.
0:04:15 So the observation what I made during that time
0:04:18 was like if a parental generation was growing up
0:04:22 in the environment, there were a lot of bacteria present,
0:04:25 their immunity in the second generation was changed.
0:04:27 Now insects do not have antibodies
0:04:29 and we’ve been looking for decades,
0:04:31 we haven’t found them, they do not exist in insect,
0:04:33 as we know it today, at least.
0:04:38 And yet I observed certain transfer of knowledge
0:04:41 of immune system activation to the second generation.
0:04:44 And it was this like super exciting discoveries,
0:04:45 like how is that possible?
0:04:46 What is happening?
0:04:48 Because they don’t have antibodies.
0:04:52 So there must be some other mechanism what is at play.
0:04:55 And so that’s what really caught me kind of hooked
0:04:55 in that question.
0:04:58 So how does that transfer happen?
0:05:02 And that’s where the honeybee was really the model
0:05:05 to study for me, that kind of helped really
0:05:07 to progress that knowledge.
0:05:12 And so you see that there is inherited immunity, right?
0:05:18 That offspring have some kind of immunity
0:05:21 that they get from their parents.
0:05:23 And the question is how does that happen?
0:05:24 What’s the mechanism?
0:05:25 Exactly.
0:05:28 And so what I actually started to think about when it’s like,
0:05:30 okay, let’s take a step back and let’s think
0:05:34 how does the parental generation encounter pathogens,
0:05:38 like American fall brood in honeybees?
0:05:39 So how do we encounter it?
0:05:42 And the answer is very simple.
0:05:44 They eat it, basically.
0:05:48 It’s a kind of like digestive tract infection.
0:05:50 Like it would be salmonella in humans, right?
0:05:53 You would eat it in, you would get sick.
0:05:55 Foodborne disease, foodborne illness.
0:05:58 That’s how bees get infectious disease.
0:05:59 Exactly.
0:06:00 In this case, in American fall brood,
0:06:02 that’s a foodborne disease.
0:06:07 And so my next question, what happens with bacteria in the gut?
0:06:11 And the very simple answer, they get digested.
0:06:14 They get cut into little pieces by the enzymes,
0:06:17 by digestive enzymes, by immune system.
0:06:21 Now, my next question was, what happens with these pieces?
0:06:25 And that was really, for me, this fascinating discovery
0:06:28 where I saw that these little pieces of bacteria
0:06:32 are transferred from a digestive system to a body cavity.
0:06:34 And I was like, okay, cool.
0:06:37 And we know once they are there, they can activate,
0:06:40 these pieces of bacteria can activate the immune system.
0:06:42 We know that because immune system receptors
0:06:46 are in this parts in the body cavity
0:06:49 and they could trigger the immunity, which is cool.
0:06:51 But this would be within one generation.
0:06:54 So how would this knowledge of encountering this bacteria
0:06:57 be transferred from one generation to another?
0:06:59 So that was a fascinating question.
0:07:02 – And I know that to answer that question,
0:07:05 you wind up looking at this particular protein,
0:07:06 it’s called vitellogenin, right?
0:07:09 And it’s in eggs, it’s in all kinds of eggs,
0:07:11 in be eggs and in chicken eggs.
0:07:14 So you wind up looking at this protein as sort of key
0:07:16 to the way that immunity gets passed
0:07:19 from the queen to her offspring.
0:07:21 So how did you figure that out?
0:07:24 – Yes, so there was absolutely,
0:07:26 and I do remember this moment,
0:07:31 it was, we had a lab meeting in Helsinki
0:07:33 and then this new postdoc in our group,
0:07:38 she presented her work on the honeybee vitellogenin.
0:07:39 And she mentioned in her talk,
0:07:43 oh, and in fish, it’s shown that vitellogenin
0:07:44 can bind to bacteria.
0:07:46 That was like this one sentence.
0:07:51 And for me, it was like, oh my God,
0:07:55 this must be my shuttle bus for the pieces of bacteria.
0:07:58 So after the lab meeting was over,
0:08:00 I asked, can I talk to you for a moment?
0:08:04 So I said, hey, I believe that your protein
0:08:07 takes my signal to next generation.
0:08:09 Do you have some of it in a lab
0:08:12 and can we do an experiment to prove it?
0:08:15 She was like, yeah, well, it’s a bit expensive,
0:08:16 but yeah, I think it’s a cool idea.
0:08:18 Let’s give it a try.
0:08:21 So it was literally us two postdocs.
0:08:23 So we ordered a bunch of honeybee queens
0:08:26 and we carried out the experiment.
0:08:30 And it was very exciting, I literally have to say.
0:08:33 I mean, I could not sleep the night before
0:08:37 and then we carried out the experiment.
0:08:39 And it was exactly as we predicted.
0:08:42 So vitellogenin was exactly the protein.
0:08:44 What takes the pieces of bacteria to next generation?
0:08:47 I mean, I think that has been one of the most
0:08:50 happiest moments of my life.
0:08:52 I mean, I could not sleep the entire night.
0:08:54 I was keeping the smile on my face.
0:08:55 Oh my God, yes, we did it.
0:08:58 We did it, we did it, we did it.
0:09:02 So from there, how do you get to the idea
0:09:03 of making a vaccine?
0:09:06 Good question.
0:09:11 I think first we’ve really focused only on the science
0:09:16 and basic research and fundamental results of it.
0:09:19 What it means for a science and its breakthrough,
0:09:22 understanding how immunity works in invertebrates
0:09:23 and in insects.
0:09:28 And somebody kind of told us, hey,
0:09:32 could you use it also in an industrial level?
0:09:33 So it’s kind of like a vaccine, right?
0:09:36 And we said, yeah, it’s kind of like a vaccine.
0:09:43 And when somebody laughed, oh, you should take it further.
0:09:46 And we were like, oh, yeah, we should take it further.
0:09:51 And we got in contact with innovation services
0:09:53 in Helsinki University.
0:09:56 And we pitched our idea to them.
0:09:58 And their first question, of course, was all,
0:09:59 is it already published?
0:10:00 Can we patent it?
0:10:02 And we said, no, no, no, it’s not published yet.
0:10:04 We are preparing publication.
0:10:08 And we never even thought about patenting it at that moment.
0:10:10 And they said, OK, we should patent it.
0:10:13 And we would like to take this project further
0:10:17 and see if we can make a real-world product
0:10:18 and the company out of it.
0:10:22 And I think from that moment on, I was totally set on it.
0:10:26 And I was thinking, yes, I want to make it a real-world product.
0:10:28 What kind of responses were you getting
0:10:31 when you were pitching your ideas?
0:10:35 I think people looked at with a mixture of, oh, that’s
0:10:35 really cool idea.
0:10:40 And I still have everywhere.
0:10:41 And I know it’s going to be broadcast.
0:10:44 But whereas this queen cage, I always have it with me.
0:10:46 I still have it always with me.
0:10:47 You’re literally holding it up.
0:10:49 What do you just carry it around with you every day?
0:10:49 Yes, I do.
0:10:52 And I have it on my table and my work
0:10:55 office and my home office in all my bags when I travel.
0:10:57 So I always say, no, it’s not injection.
0:10:58 It’s oral vaccine.
0:11:00 You see, this is where queen bee is held.
0:11:03 And this is where a vaccine will be.
0:11:05 And just to be clear, you’re holding up a little sort
0:11:09 of transparent plastic case, maybe a little bigger
0:11:12 than a pack of gum, about the size of a pack of gum, say,
0:11:14 with little air holes, presumably.
0:11:16 So you put the queen bee in there.
0:11:17 And the holes are so the queen can breathe.
0:11:18 Exactly.
0:11:24 That’s what I’ve been pitching for past few years.
0:11:28 And Annette was one of the people I pitched it to.
0:11:32 And I convinced her.
0:11:34 Annette is Annette Eklizer, the person who
0:11:38 wound up being Daliel’s co-founder at Dalon Animal Health.
0:11:43 The fact Dalon is for Daliel and Annette Dalon.
0:11:45 We’ll be back in a minute to talk with Annette
0:11:49 about how she and Daliel turned Daliel’s basic research
0:11:53 into a vaccine that has now been used on millions of bees.
0:12:04 If you’re looking for a new podcast
0:12:07 but don’t know where to start, here’s one you can add to your list.
0:12:09 The Jordan Harbinger Show.
0:12:11 The Jordan Harbinger Show is aimed
0:12:13 at making you a better-informed critical thinker
0:12:17 so you can get a sense of how the world actually works
0:12:19 and come to your own conclusions about what’s happening.
0:12:23 Jordan talks to everyone from neuroscientists to CEOs
0:12:26 to astronauts, authors, and performers.
0:12:28 You might enjoy Jordan’s interview with historian
0:12:30 Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens,
0:12:34 A Brief History of Humankind, or his episode
0:12:37 with fool-me-once author Kelly Richmond-Pope
0:12:40 on how fraud became a trillion-dollar industry.
0:12:42 Whether Jordan’s conducting an interview
0:12:44 or giving advice to a listener, you’ll
0:12:46 find something useful that you can apply to your own life
0:12:49 in every episode of the Jordan Harbinger Show.
0:12:52 That could mean learning how to ask for advice the right way,
0:12:56 or it could just be discovering a slight mindset tweak that
0:12:58 changes how you see the world.
0:13:04 Search for the Jordan Harbinger Show, that’s H-A-R-B-I-N-G-E-R,
0:13:07 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio,
0:13:10 or wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:13:15 My name is Annette Kleiser, and I’m
0:13:18 the CEO of Dalan Animal Health.
0:13:23 How did you get into the B vaccine business?
0:13:25 By complete accident.
0:13:27 It was a complete accident.
0:13:34 I was at the University of Helsinki in 2018
0:13:35 to visit.
0:13:38 Darja Freitag happened to be in the office
0:13:43 while I was visiting, and the director called her in and said,
0:13:48 you have to meet these folks and tell them about your B vaccine.
0:13:50 And so she presented to us.
0:13:54 She came into the room, and I was just amazed.
0:13:59 I was just– we all know bees are dying.
0:14:03 We all know they are essential for our survival
0:14:04 around the world.
0:14:09 It’s a big issue, and we all throw our hands up.
0:14:14 And here is somebody that has an idea yet very early stage.
0:14:19 But still, it was an idea that we had to take.
0:14:22 And so we got together, and we talked.
0:14:25 And a few months later, we decided to start a company
0:14:26 and give it a try.
0:14:29 So you had been working in technology transfer
0:14:31 for years at this point, right?
0:14:33 And essentially helping universities
0:14:36 turn scientific ideas into companies.
0:14:39 You had never jumped ship before.
0:14:43 You had never seen an idea that made you say, holy cow,
0:14:47 I’m going to quit my job and go all in on this one idea.
0:14:49 Why this one?
0:14:57 Because it was so different and so urgent and so important.
0:15:02 It was not an incremental improvement
0:15:04 over existing technologies.
0:15:06 This was fundamental.
0:15:10 This was a game changer.
0:15:14 I mean, we all talk about game changers in innovation.
0:15:17 But here, there was a true game changer.
0:15:18 And yeah, you’re right.
0:15:23 I’ve been doing this job of looking at innovations
0:15:25 for 15 or 20 years.
0:15:28 And people often said, well, one day you’re
0:15:30 going to see this one thing.
0:15:32 And I said, I love my job.
0:15:34 I get to see different things all the time.
0:15:36 And it is fantastic, all this innovation,
0:15:39 all these amazing ideas.
0:15:41 And I get to be part of all of them.
0:15:45 But this couldn’t wait.
0:15:50 And it just grabbed me.
0:15:52 It grabbed me, and it was clear from the moment
0:15:55 I saw it that I had to do it.
0:15:57 Let’s talk about the B industry for a moment.
0:16:01 Let’s just do that.
0:16:02 I know almonds are a big deal.
0:16:04 But I want to even start zoomed out a little bit more.
0:16:08 So there was this moment some years ago
0:16:10 when everybody was talking about colony collapse.
0:16:13 And there was certainly alarming–
0:16:15 I don’t know whether it was alarmist kind of discourse
0:16:19 about, oh my god, bees are going to go away.
0:16:20 And then we’re going to be screwed because we
0:16:22 won’t be able to grow food anymore.
0:16:24 Plainly, that didn’t happen, right?
0:16:26 Like what– first of all, what was the deal with that?
0:16:28 And what happened?
0:16:36 So we lose about, on average, 40% to 60% of hives every year.
0:16:39 And it has proved sustainable just because people
0:16:42 are able to create new colonies constantly.
0:16:46 However, it gets more and more expensive.
0:16:55 The labor costs, the restoring the colonies, it’s really
0:16:59 putting a strain on beekeepers.
0:17:02 The worst case scenario did not come to pass.
0:17:05 But we’re still losing lots of colonies ever.
0:17:07 You’re far more than the historical norm.
0:17:09 That’s the state of play.
0:17:12 Now, on the sort of bee pollination industry
0:17:16 side, on the demand, like what is the market for honey bees?
0:17:21 Who is paying beekeepers to bring their hives
0:17:22 to the fields every year?
0:17:25 What’s that market look like in the US, in North America?
0:17:30 Well, 80% of the world almonds come from California.
0:17:34 So almonds are just a–
0:17:39 whether it’s through almond milk or in maasabahan,
0:17:40 I grew up with them on Christmas.
0:17:42 From my point of view, kind of an itch youth.
0:17:45 But go crazy, yes.
0:17:51 But apparently, almonds are used around the world.
0:17:54 And they don’t grow without honey bees.
0:17:56 They will not be a single almond.
0:18:06 So California brings in on large semi-trucks several million
0:18:09 hives every year from across the country
0:18:11 to pollinate for six weeks.
0:18:16 They’re put into the almond orchards and do their thing.
0:18:18 And so you have–
0:18:23 it’s like a big airport where many bees mingle and mix.
0:18:27 And they spread diseases.
0:18:31 And they spread diseases not among themselves,
0:18:33 but also to other insects.
0:18:37 After the almonds, they then go to Washington’s
0:18:41 for the apples, then to the pumpkins,
0:18:42 and over to Maine for the blueberries.
0:18:46 They go off and on the semi-trucks.
0:18:49 And I shipped across during the pollination season
0:18:54 until they end up in the center of the country,
0:18:58 or in the Midwest, where they then start honey production.
0:18:59 Interesting.
0:19:01 So once the pollination season is over,
0:19:03 the honey production starts.
0:19:06 And that’s the food industry.
0:19:09 And so it’s the same colony, like traveling around the country,
0:19:13 presumably multiple generations of bees, the same colony.
0:19:16 And it’s sort of an endless loop.
0:19:19 It’s like a traveling–
0:19:22 it’s like being on the road, like rock stars,
0:19:23 or a circus, or something.
0:19:24 That’s exactly right.
0:19:27 So it gets kicked off.
0:19:31 The season gets kicked off in February in California
0:19:32 with the almonds.
0:19:34 And then they just travel around.
0:19:37 And it ends in October when they are
0:19:40 ready for their winter hibernation
0:19:44 and get this day either go into cold storage,
0:19:47 where it’s big warehouses.
0:19:51 And then all starts over again with–
0:19:54 Then go back back to California for the almonds.
0:19:57 OK, so that is the context as far as bees go,
0:19:59 or bees in the United States.
0:20:02 Let’s go back to you and Dahliaal starting the company.
0:20:04 You meet her.
0:20:07 You guys decide to turn this basic research she’s
0:20:09 done into a company, into a real thing.
0:20:11 Like, what’s the state of play?
0:20:13 What are things like when you start the company?
0:20:17 So yeah, so her lab was closed down.
0:20:20 She was on her way to accept a position,
0:20:23 or accepted a position in Austria at the university.
0:20:25 So there was no lab.
0:20:27 There was a pending patent application
0:20:29 that the university had filed.
0:20:30 And that was it.
0:20:34 And I had her brain and–
0:20:36 You had her brain and a pending patent.
0:20:39 That was the company.
0:20:40 Exactly right.
0:20:44 And so we petitioned the university
0:20:47 to give us, to license us, the technology
0:20:51 so that we could find a company around it,
0:20:56 and also start raising money to finance this endeavor.
0:21:02 And then we had to develop a regulatory path
0:21:06 for getting something like this approved.
0:21:09 Now, if this was a chicken vaccine or a human vaccine
0:21:15 or dog vaccine, we would know what the regulatory path would
0:21:15 be.
0:21:17 We’d know how many animals we’d need.
0:21:19 We’d know how to manufacture it.
0:21:22 We’d know everything has been done before.
0:21:24 For 150 years, right?
0:21:28 Like, Pasteur made a chicken vaccine and a dog vaccine
0:21:31 before he made a human vaccine.
0:21:33 So he and none of this existed.
0:21:36 There was no regulatory framework.
0:21:39 Nobody ever made a vaccine for an insect before.
0:21:41 Nobody had ever done this before.
0:21:44 So tell me about the disease that you want to vaccinate against.
0:21:46 It’s called American fowl brood.
0:21:48 American fowl brood.
0:21:49 Fowl brood.
0:21:52 And it’s contrary to its name, it actually
0:21:55 exists in every country around the world.
0:21:58 And it is very contagious.
0:22:01 It’s like anthrax for bees.
0:22:05 So a few spores in a hive are sufficient to wipe out
0:22:07 your colony.
0:22:08 Highly contagious.
0:22:13 And if you do contract the disease,
0:22:16 you have to pour gasoline over the colony
0:22:20 and burn the hive, the colony, all your equipment,
0:22:22 everything that came in touch with it
0:22:24 and bury it under the ground.
0:22:29 That’s like a biblical injunction.
0:22:32 Or is what, all of the bees die, basically?
0:22:33 Everything dies.
0:22:36 And your bee suits, your equipment,
0:22:37 because everything that came in touch
0:22:44 with this contaminated hive can pass on the disease
0:22:45 to another hive.
0:22:48 And in some countries, all the hives
0:22:54 that were in a two mile radius have to be quarantined.
0:22:59 So moving restrictions, you can’t do anything with them
0:22:59 anymore.
0:23:01 So it affects your neighbor.
0:23:04 It’s also very costly.
0:23:05 The flowers don’t wait.
0:23:08 If you need to make honey, if you need to pollinate
0:23:10 and the disease hits your neighbor,
0:23:14 and all of a sudden, you can’t put your hives
0:23:16 into the almonds or the pumpkins,
0:23:20 you lose half of your annual income.
0:23:26 And so it’s just a really devastating disease.
0:23:28 And Daya had convincing data on it.
0:23:32 So we said, OK, let’s go after American Foul Brute
0:23:39 and see if we can tackle this as our first trial vaccine.
0:23:41 And so we generated new data.
0:23:44 We had our lead candidate for the vaccine.
0:23:48 And we set up a meeting with the USDA
0:23:51 to make our case, which was the first step,
0:23:54 that this is a vaccine and not something else.
0:23:58 And that what we’re doing is actually
0:24:02 giving in a controlled way this dead pathogen.
0:24:05 And it activates the immune system
0:24:07 and the animals are protected.
0:24:09 Presumably, when you’re going to the USDA,
0:24:11 the number of people who knows how to do a B vaccine trial is zero.
0:24:14 Nobody’s ever done it or has ever thought about it before.
0:24:16 As far as I know.
0:24:19 So you’ve got to actually make the vaccine, right?
0:24:20 So what is that?
0:24:26 So you take your pathogen and you grow it up.
0:24:27 Because it’s a bacteria, it grows.
0:24:30 In this case, this is the terrible American Foul Brute.
0:24:33 You’re growing American Foul Brute in the lab.
0:24:34 In the lab.
0:24:38 And then you inactivate it.
0:24:39 You kill it.
0:24:40 So it’s dead, dead, dead.
0:24:42 And you make sure it’s absolutely
0:24:46 there is nothing in there that survived.
0:24:49 Now you have the vaccine and you need to test it, right?
0:24:51 You need to essentially do a clinical trial.
0:24:54 But it’s a clinical trial of bees
0:24:56 to see if the vaccine works on them.
0:24:59 And my understanding is you have to start by vaccinating the queen bee.
0:25:02 And I’m curious just how that happens.
0:25:03 How do you do that?
0:25:08 They’re queen producers, queen breeders that make a queen.
0:25:13 And then the queen mates flies around in her mating flight.
0:25:18 And they catch her and put her into little plastic cages.
0:25:20 They’re called queen cages.
0:25:24 And with a few nurse bees, these are young bees.
0:25:27 They have just hatched.
0:25:32 And those bees feed royal jelly to the queen.
0:25:33 They’re called nurse bees?
0:25:35 Yeah, wow.
0:25:38 And these nurse bees are in the cage with her.
0:25:41 And in the cage is a sugar paste,
0:25:45 which is made of powdered sugar and corn syrup
0:25:47 or powdered sugar and water.
0:25:50 So different, but it’s a sugar paste.
0:25:53 And we put our vaccine, which is a liquid formulation,
0:25:56 into this sugar paste.
0:26:02 And the nurse bees will eat it, make royal jelly out of.
0:26:05 And the royal jelly now has pieces of the vaccine.
0:26:08 It’s what they feed to the queen.
0:26:10 Because the queen doesn’t like to eat herself.
0:26:11 She needs to be fed.
0:26:14 Amazing, like a true queen.
0:26:19 So you give the vaccine plus sugar paste to those nurse bees.
0:26:20 They eat it.
0:26:24 They make royal jelly with vaccine in it for the queen.
0:26:26 Then the queen eats that royal jelly.
0:26:28 And then what happens?
0:26:31 So we have like 50 queens sitting there.
0:26:33 Some of them get vaccinated.
0:26:35 Others get not vaccinated.
0:26:37 Researcher doesn’t know which one.
0:26:42 Randomize a good randomized, blinded trial.
0:26:46 We put them now out into real hives.
0:26:47 Out in the world.
0:26:49 They’re going to work.
0:26:50 They go out into the world.
0:26:52 And then we wait.
0:26:57 And the queen will emerge out of this little cage.
0:27:02 And if the hive accepts her, she will start laying eggs.
0:27:07 And after a few weeks, we will go into the hive
0:27:14 and take frames where the queen has laid the eggs.
0:27:18 Bring them back to the lab.
0:27:20 And we’ll take one day old larvae.
0:27:23 The researchers always tell me, you
0:27:25 know when they’re one day old when you barely can see them
0:27:26 or not at all.
0:27:27 OK.
0:27:30 A tiny, tiny larvae.
0:27:33 And these brood diseases, like American fowl brood,
0:27:36 they only hit the larvae in the first three days.
0:27:39 Once you make it, they’re like infant diseases.
0:27:42 You can only get sick when you’re a little child,
0:27:43 but not later.
0:27:44 And that’s the same here.
0:27:47 So we need to get these one day old larvae.
0:27:49 They put them in a little petri dish.
0:27:56 Feed them with larval food and bombard them with disease.
0:27:57 So what do you find?
0:27:59 So you have your control group and you
0:28:01 have your vaccinated group.
0:28:04 They’re getting bombarded with fowl brood.
0:28:06 What happens?
0:28:12 And we had between 30% to 50% higher survival in the lab.
0:28:19 And so based on that and based on all the other aspects
0:28:23 of vaccine development, of purity and safety
0:28:26 and all of this, the regulator said, OK,
0:28:29 we’re going to give you the market approval
0:28:34 and the authorization to sell on a conditional basis.
0:28:34 OK.
0:28:37 So we started selling.
0:28:42 We shipped the first vaccine in May of last year
0:28:43 to Albuquipa.
0:28:46 In May of 2023.
0:28:47 And how’s it going?
0:28:49 How’s it going now?
0:28:50 It’s going well.
0:28:51 It’s going well.
0:28:55 It was interesting because we didn’t do any advertising.
0:28:58 We didn’t do any promotion around it
0:29:03 because we felt it was such a new tool.
0:29:07 And we were such a small company
0:29:12 that we wanted to really work on the ground with beekeepers
0:29:16 to introduce this new product to see how does it
0:29:18 integrate into their operation.
0:29:20 So where are you now?
0:29:23 How many– how much vaccine are you selling?
0:29:25 How many bees are getting vaccinated?
0:29:33 I think there are probably 20 to 25,000 hives, colonies
0:29:34 vaccinated out there.
0:29:36 And you sell them in the US and Canada, is that right?
0:29:38 Yes, in Canada only.
0:29:42 So you found in the lab in these very harsh, intense lab
0:29:46 conditions that the vaccine reduced infection by 30
0:29:47 to 50%.
0:29:51 Do you have an estimate of its efficacy in the field?
0:29:56 Well, so far, none of the colonies out there
0:30:02 have tested positive or have shown American–
0:30:04 And you have tens of thousands of colonies
0:30:04 have been vaccinated.
0:30:07 And the number that have been found to have American Falbrood
0:30:08 is zero.
0:30:09 So that seems good.
0:30:10 Yes.
0:30:14 Do you have a next animal that you
0:30:17 want to try and vaccinate after bees?
0:30:17 Shrimp.
0:30:18 Shrimp.
0:30:20 Is that because shrimp are farmed for food?
0:30:23 Is that the setting where you would vaccinate shrimp?
0:30:24 Yes.
0:30:25 It’s food security.
0:30:26 Yeah.
0:30:29 And so is there a particular shrimp pathogen
0:30:31 that you’re working on?
0:30:33 It’s white spot syndrome.
0:30:37 It’s a virus and ribiosis, which is a bacteria.
0:30:38 Like more or less, when do you think
0:30:41 you’ll apply for approval for shrimp?
0:30:47 Probably if we’re lucky in two or three years.
0:30:52 So because we have shown that we can vaccinate and protect
0:30:56 a wild animal from viruses, from deadly viruses,
0:31:03 we’ve shown that we can protect a honeybee
0:31:07 from bacterial diseases and from fungal diseases.
0:31:11 So we can show that this is possible in insects
0:31:14 by activating the innate immune system.
0:31:19 We believe– and we know that this immune system is conserved
0:31:21 across invertebrates.
0:31:26 We believe we can use that same approach for shrimp,
0:31:33 for mosquitoes, for all kinds of animals that currently have–
0:31:36 that we rely on–
0:31:41 shrimp and bees– that are extremely important for our food
0:31:47 security and have no non-chemical sustainable ways
0:31:49 to protect them.
0:31:53 And then beyond that, take it into areas
0:31:56 that for these infectious– vector-based infectious
0:32:00 diseases that have a huge impact on human health,
0:32:02 where we also don’t have anything.
0:32:03 So it’s really, as Stalin, we want
0:32:08 to open up this entire space and really harnessing
0:32:11 the power of this immune system that is completely neglected.
0:32:13 Are you talking about mosquitoes?
0:32:16 Because the notion is you could vaccinate mosquitoes
0:32:18 against the pathogen that causes malaria.
0:32:20 Is that the idea there?
0:32:21 That’s the idea.
0:32:23 Or zika, or dengue.
0:32:26 And any mosquito-transmitted disease,
0:32:27 if you could vaccinate the mosquitoes,
0:32:29 they wouldn’t transmit disease.
0:32:31 So are you working on that one?
0:32:33 That would be my next one.
0:32:37 We’re not working on it yet.
0:32:39 We’ll be back in a minute with “The Lightning Ground.”
0:32:49 If you’re looking for a new podcast
0:32:50 but don’t know where to start, here
0:32:52 is one you can add to your list–
0:32:54 The Jordan Harbinger Show.
0:32:56 The Jordan Harbinger Show is aimed
0:32:59 at making you a better-informed critical thinker
0:33:02 so you can get a sense of how the world actually works
0:33:05 and come to your own conclusions about what’s happening.
0:33:08 Jordan talks to everyone from neuroscientists to CEOs
0:33:11 to astronauts, authors, and performers.
0:33:12 You might enjoy Jordan’s interview
0:33:15 with historian Yuval Noah Harari, the author of “Sapiens–
0:33:19 A Brief History of Humankind,” or his episode
0:33:22 with fool-me-once author, Kelly Richmond Pope,
0:33:25 on how fraud became a trillion-dollar industry.
0:33:27 Whether Jordan’s conducting an interview
0:33:29 or giving advice to a listener, you’ll
0:33:31 find something useful that you can apply to your own life
0:33:34 in every episode of “The Jordan Harbinger Show.”
0:33:37 That could mean learning how to ask for advice the right way,
0:33:41 or it could just be discovering a slight mindset tweak that
0:33:43 changes how you see the world.
0:33:46 Search for “The Jordan Harbinger Show,”
0:33:51 that’s H-A-R-B-I-N-G-E-R, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
0:33:55 iHeart Radio, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:34:01 OK, let’s do “The Lightning Ground.”
0:34:06 What was the best idea you ever saw before you met Dalio?
0:34:13 It was a refrigerator freezer where
0:34:17 you could freeze fruit without becoming all mushy.
0:34:22 Whatever happened to that idea?
0:34:25 I have no idea.
0:34:27 So as I understand it, you grew up
0:34:31 in a wine-growing region in Germany, and you’re into wine.
0:34:33 And so what I always want to know is,
0:34:37 what’s a good cheap bottle of wine that I can buy?
0:34:42 I mean, I’m partial to actually Spanish wines.
0:34:44 Like a Rioja?
0:34:45 Like, what should I buy?
0:34:48 Yeah, a Rioja or a Vedejo.
0:34:51 They are just amazing, amazing wines.
0:34:53 What’s one surprising thing you’ve
0:34:55 learned about bees since you started the company?
0:35:01 Seeing– well, the trans-generation immune priming
0:35:02 is pretty–
0:35:03 Well, that’s the big one.
0:35:06 That’s the big one, obviously.
0:35:08 But are there any other just like weird bee facts
0:35:11 that you know now that you didn’t know before?
0:35:17 I think understanding or looking at the superorganism,
0:35:19 how it works together.
0:35:23 Superorganism is this idea that the colony, the entire colony,
0:35:25 is sort of like an animal.
0:35:27 Like one animal.
0:35:29 Yeah.
0:35:33 The individual cannot survive on its own.
0:35:42 It needs everybody in the society of bees to make it,
0:35:46 to share information, to keep each other warm,
0:35:48 to feed each other all of that.
0:35:54 And that’s just amazing to see every single day.
0:35:58 Anetta Kleiser is the CEO of Dahliaan Animal Health.
0:36:00 I also did a lightning round with her co-founder,
0:36:04 the company’s chief scientific officer, Dahliaal Freitag.
0:36:09 Here’s that part of the interview now to close the show.
0:36:12 What’s your second favorite insect?
0:36:13 Ants.
0:36:14 Different ants.
0:36:18 I cannot pinpoint one species of ant, but yeah, ants.
0:36:19 Why ants?
0:36:21 What’s fascinating about them?
0:36:23 They have so many different adaptations.
0:36:25 You name it, they have it.
0:36:28 They can wage wars at each other.
0:36:32 They can count the size of the opposite army, literally.
0:36:35 They know if the opposite side is too big,
0:36:37 they need to run away.
0:36:40 If it’s smaller than they, they will engage in the battle.
0:36:42 They build structures.
0:36:43 They build houses.
0:36:47 They have farming.
0:36:51 They are fascinating, absolutely fascinating organism group.
0:36:55 What should I do to reduce the risk of getting stung by a bee?
0:36:58 Don’t go close to beehives.
0:37:00 Fair enough.
0:37:02 Well, also the other thing, what I would recommend,
0:37:05 if you have a bee close to you, do not panic.
0:37:06 Do not start waving around.
0:37:10 So keep your calm and bees appreciate it.
0:37:13 What’s one thing most people get wrong about bees?
0:37:17 I think a lot of people believe that the honeybee queen is
0:37:19 the one who rules the colony.
0:37:22 I kind of strongly disagree with that.
0:37:24 I think it’s the workers who are ruling the hive.
0:37:29 Because as soon as queen is not performing well enough anymore,
0:37:34 she’s going to be removed and the new queen will be raised.
0:37:37 So it’s really all for the hive, all for the common good.
0:37:40 And it’s not so much about her.
0:37:43 It’s about the hive.
0:37:49 So is a bee colony a socialist paradise?
0:37:53 Yeah, I guess you could say that.
0:37:54 Definitely.
0:37:58 I would not say it’s a monarchy, but it sounds like that.
0:38:01 I don’t think so.
0:38:03 The queen is working for the workers.
0:38:04 Yep.
0:38:08 I mean, she gets to leave a hive once in her life.
0:38:13 Rest of the time she spends inside and needs to produce offspring.
0:38:18 As soon as she fails, she will be replaced.
0:38:19 Yeah.
0:38:20 She’s got one job.
0:38:21 She’s got one job.
0:38:28 Today’s show was produced by Gabriel Hunter Chang.
0:38:33 It was edited by Lydia Jean Cotte and engineered by Sara Brugier.
0:38:37 You can email us at problem@pushkin.fm.
0:38:40 I’m Jacob Goldstein, and we’ll be back next week with another episode
0:38:41 of What’s Your Problem.
0:38:43 [MUSIC PLAYING]
0:38:56 If you’re looking for a new podcast but don’t know where to start,
0:39:01 here’s one you can add to your list, The Jordan Harbinger Show.
0:39:04 The Jordan Harbinger Show is aimed at making you a better informed critical
0:39:08 thinker so you can get a sense of how the world actually works
0:39:11 and come to your own conclusions about what’s happening.
0:39:14 Jordan talks to everyone from neuroscientists to CEOs
0:39:17 to astronauts, authors, and performers.
0:39:20 You might enjoy Jordan’s interview with historian Yuval Noah Harari,
0:39:24 the author of Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind,
0:39:28 or his episode with fool-me-once author, Kelly Richmond Pope,
0:39:31 on how fraud became a trillion-dollar industry.
0:39:35 Whether Jordan’s conducting an interview or giving advice to a listener,
0:39:38 you’ll find something useful that you can apply to your own life
0:39:41 in every episode of The Jordan Harbinger Show.
0:39:44 That could mean learning how to ask for advice the right way,
0:39:47 or it could just be discovering a slight mindset tweak
0:39:49 that changes how you see the world.
0:39:55 Search for The Jordan Harbinger Show, that’s H-A-R-B-I-N-G-E-R,
0:40:02 on Apple podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:00:07 Pushkin.
0:00:10 If you’re looking for a new podcast,
0:00:12 but don’t know where to start,
0:00:14 here’s one you can add to your list.
0:00:16 The Jordan Harbinger Show.
0:00:18 The Jordan Harbinger Show is aimed
0:00:20 at making you a better informed critical thinker
0:00:23 so you can get a sense of how the world actually works
0:00:26 and come to your own conclusions about what’s happening.
0:00:29 Jordan talks to everyone from neuroscientists to CEOs
0:00:32 to astronauts, authors, and performers.
0:00:33 You might enjoy Jordan’s interview
0:00:35 with historian Yuval Noah Harari,
0:00:39 the author of “Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind”
0:00:42 or his episode with fool me once author,
0:00:43 Kelly Richmond Pope,
0:00:46 on how fraud became a trillion dollar industry.
0:00:48 Whether Jordan’s conducting an interview
0:00:50 or giving advice to a listener,
0:00:52 you’ll find something useful that you can apply
0:00:54 to your own life in every episode
0:00:56 of the Jordan Harbinger Show.
0:00:58 That could mean learning how to ask for advice
0:01:00 the right way or it could just be discovering
0:01:04 a slight mindset tweak that changes how you see the world.
0:01:07 Search for the Jordan Harbinger Show,
0:01:12 that’s H-A-R-B-I-N-G-E-R on Apple Podcasts,
0:01:17 Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:01:21 How many times have you been stung?
0:01:23 – Many.
0:01:24 – 10?
0:01:26 – Oh yeah, yeah, 100 probably.
0:01:29 Each season I get a few bee stunks.
0:01:33 I mean, we do kind of a nasty thing to the beehive,
0:01:37 we still wear larvae to check the immune priming effects
0:01:41 and they don’t like it, obviously, I can’t blame them.
0:01:43 – So you’re telling me you had it coming?
0:01:45 – Yes, I had it coming.
0:01:48 I also sell it to all my students, that’s okay,
0:01:52 that’s normal, just let me know if you develop allergies.
0:01:53 – Does it make it harder to get students
0:01:55 to come work with you?
0:01:57 – No, no, not at all.
0:02:00 (upbeat music)
0:02:05 – I’m Jacob Goldstein and this is What’s Your Problem,
0:02:07 the show where I talk to people
0:02:10 who are trying to make technological progress.
0:02:12 I have two guests today.
0:02:15 One is Dahlia Freituck, that’s who you just heard.
0:02:17 The other is Annetta Kleiser.
0:02:19 Together they are the co-founders of a company
0:02:21 called Dahlian Animal Health.
0:02:26 And they have brought to market a vaccine for bees.
0:02:29 It is the first ever vaccine for any insect.
0:02:32 And their story is interesting and important
0:02:35 on a number of levels, including, but not limited to,
0:02:38 how do you even make a vaccine for an insect?
0:02:42 Also what’s going on with bees these days anyways?
0:02:44 And if you can vaccinate bees,
0:02:47 what other insects might you wanna vaccinate?
0:02:52 Annetta Kleiser is the CEO.
0:02:55 She spent her career working in technology transfer,
0:02:58 basically figuring out how to turn academics ideas
0:03:01 into real world products and businesses.
0:03:04 Later in the show we’ll have my interview with Annetta
0:03:07 about testing the vaccine and bringing it to market
0:03:11 and also what’s happening with bees and the bee industry,
0:03:12 such as it is.
0:03:15 But first we’re gonna play my conversation with Dahlia
0:03:18 about the basic research she did
0:03:21 that led to this idea of a vaccine for bees.
0:03:25 – So when I started to work on insect immunity
0:03:29 two decades ago, there was not a lot known about it.
0:03:33 So it was a bit, it was really like, I would say,
0:03:35 in kinder shoes.
0:03:37 – Kinder shoes like baby shoes, yeah.
0:03:41 – Baby shoes I think is an English word for it, I’m sorry.
0:03:45 But it was really like the beginnings of it,
0:03:48 basically it was the stage where something is happening,
0:03:50 but we don’t know what it is.
0:03:53 – At some point you get interested in this question
0:03:56 of can bees acquire immunity?
0:03:59 Can they become immune based on exposure to a pathogen?
0:04:00 How does that arise?
0:04:02 How does that question arise?
0:04:05 – Yeah, that question actually arrived during my PhD time
0:04:07 when I worked with moths.
0:04:09 – With moths, okay.
0:04:11 – Yeah, it was before honeybees.
0:04:15 So the observation what I made during that time
0:04:18 was like if a parental generation was growing up
0:04:22 in the environment, there were a lot of bacteria present,
0:04:25 their immunity in the second generation was changed.
0:04:27 Now insects do not have antibodies
0:04:29 and we’ve been looking for decades,
0:04:31 we haven’t found them, they do not exist in insect,
0:04:33 as we know it today, at least.
0:04:38 And yet I observed certain transfer of knowledge
0:04:41 of immune system activation to the second generation.
0:04:44 And it was this like super exciting discoveries,
0:04:45 like how is that possible?
0:04:46 What is happening?
0:04:48 Because they don’t have antibodies.
0:04:52 So there must be some other mechanism what is at play.
0:04:55 And so that’s what really caught me kind of hooked
0:04:55 in that question.
0:04:58 So how does that transfer happen?
0:05:02 And that’s where the honeybee was really the model
0:05:05 to study for me, that kind of helped really
0:05:07 to progress that knowledge.
0:05:12 And so you see that there is inherited immunity, right?
0:05:18 That offspring have some kind of immunity
0:05:21 that they get from their parents.
0:05:23 And the question is how does that happen?
0:05:24 What’s the mechanism?
0:05:25 Exactly.
0:05:28 And so what I actually started to think about when it’s like,
0:05:30 okay, let’s take a step back and let’s think
0:05:34 how does the parental generation encounter pathogens,
0:05:38 like American fall brood in honeybees?
0:05:39 So how do we encounter it?
0:05:42 And the answer is very simple.
0:05:44 They eat it, basically.
0:05:48 It’s a kind of like digestive tract infection.
0:05:50 Like it would be salmonella in humans, right?
0:05:53 You would eat it in, you would get sick.
0:05:55 Foodborne disease, foodborne illness.
0:05:58 That’s how bees get infectious disease.
0:05:59 Exactly.
0:06:00 In this case, in American fall brood,
0:06:02 that’s a foodborne disease.
0:06:07 And so my next question, what happens with bacteria in the gut?
0:06:11 And the very simple answer, they get digested.
0:06:14 They get cut into little pieces by the enzymes,
0:06:17 by digestive enzymes, by immune system.
0:06:21 Now, my next question was, what happens with these pieces?
0:06:25 And that was really, for me, this fascinating discovery
0:06:28 where I saw that these little pieces of bacteria
0:06:32 are transferred from a digestive system to a body cavity.
0:06:34 And I was like, okay, cool.
0:06:37 And we know once they are there, they can activate,
0:06:40 these pieces of bacteria can activate the immune system.
0:06:42 We know that because immune system receptors
0:06:46 are in this parts in the body cavity
0:06:49 and they could trigger the immunity, which is cool.
0:06:51 But this would be within one generation.
0:06:54 So how would this knowledge of encountering this bacteria
0:06:57 be transferred from one generation to another?
0:06:59 So that was a fascinating question.
0:07:02 – And I know that to answer that question,
0:07:05 you wind up looking at this particular protein,
0:07:06 it’s called vitellogenin, right?
0:07:09 And it’s in eggs, it’s in all kinds of eggs,
0:07:11 in be eggs and in chicken eggs.
0:07:14 So you wind up looking at this protein as sort of key
0:07:16 to the way that immunity gets passed
0:07:19 from the queen to her offspring.
0:07:21 So how did you figure that out?
0:07:24 – Yes, so there was absolutely,
0:07:26 and I do remember this moment,
0:07:31 it was, we had a lab meeting in Helsinki
0:07:33 and then this new postdoc in our group,
0:07:38 she presented her work on the honeybee vitellogenin.
0:07:39 And she mentioned in her talk,
0:07:43 oh, and in fish, it’s shown that vitellogenin
0:07:44 can bind to bacteria.
0:07:46 That was like this one sentence.
0:07:51 And for me, it was like, oh my God,
0:07:55 this must be my shuttle bus for the pieces of bacteria.
0:07:58 So after the lab meeting was over,
0:08:00 I asked, can I talk to you for a moment?
0:08:04 So I said, hey, I believe that your protein
0:08:07 takes my signal to next generation.
0:08:09 Do you have some of it in a lab
0:08:12 and can we do an experiment to prove it?
0:08:15 She was like, yeah, well, it’s a bit expensive,
0:08:16 but yeah, I think it’s a cool idea.
0:08:18 Let’s give it a try.
0:08:21 So it was literally us two postdocs.
0:08:23 So we ordered a bunch of honeybee queens
0:08:26 and we carried out the experiment.
0:08:30 And it was very exciting, I literally have to say.
0:08:33 I mean, I could not sleep the night before
0:08:37 and then we carried out the experiment.
0:08:39 And it was exactly as we predicted.
0:08:42 So vitellogenin was exactly the protein.
0:08:44 What takes the pieces of bacteria to next generation?
0:08:47 I mean, I think that has been one of the most
0:08:50 happiest moments of my life.
0:08:52 I mean, I could not sleep the entire night.
0:08:54 I was keeping the smile on my face.
0:08:55 Oh my God, yes, we did it.
0:08:58 We did it, we did it, we did it.
0:09:02 So from there, how do you get to the idea
0:09:03 of making a vaccine?
0:09:06 Good question.
0:09:11 I think first we’ve really focused only on the science
0:09:16 and basic research and fundamental results of it.
0:09:19 What it means for a science and its breakthrough,
0:09:22 understanding how immunity works in invertebrates
0:09:23 and in insects.
0:09:28 And somebody kind of told us, hey,
0:09:32 could you use it also in an industrial level?
0:09:33 So it’s kind of like a vaccine, right?
0:09:36 And we said, yeah, it’s kind of like a vaccine.
0:09:43 And when somebody laughed, oh, you should take it further.
0:09:46 And we were like, oh, yeah, we should take it further.
0:09:51 And we got in contact with innovation services
0:09:53 in Helsinki University.
0:09:56 And we pitched our idea to them.
0:09:58 And their first question, of course, was all,
0:09:59 is it already published?
0:10:00 Can we patent it?
0:10:02 And we said, no, no, no, it’s not published yet.
0:10:04 We are preparing publication.
0:10:08 And we never even thought about patenting it at that moment.
0:10:10 And they said, OK, we should patent it.
0:10:13 And we would like to take this project further
0:10:17 and see if we can make a real-world product
0:10:18 and the company out of it.
0:10:22 And I think from that moment on, I was totally set on it.
0:10:26 And I was thinking, yes, I want to make it a real-world product.
0:10:28 What kind of responses were you getting
0:10:31 when you were pitching your ideas?
0:10:35 I think people looked at with a mixture of, oh, that’s
0:10:35 really cool idea.
0:10:40 And I still have everywhere.
0:10:41 And I know it’s going to be broadcast.
0:10:44 But whereas this queen cage, I always have it with me.
0:10:46 I still have it always with me.
0:10:47 You’re literally holding it up.
0:10:49 What do you just carry it around with you every day?
0:10:49 Yes, I do.
0:10:52 And I have it on my table and my work
0:10:55 office and my home office in all my bags when I travel.
0:10:57 So I always say, no, it’s not injection.
0:10:58 It’s oral vaccine.
0:11:00 You see, this is where queen bee is held.
0:11:03 And this is where a vaccine will be.
0:11:05 And just to be clear, you’re holding up a little sort
0:11:09 of transparent plastic case, maybe a little bigger
0:11:12 than a pack of gum, about the size of a pack of gum, say,
0:11:14 with little air holes, presumably.
0:11:16 So you put the queen bee in there.
0:11:17 And the holes are so the queen can breathe.
0:11:18 Exactly.
0:11:24 That’s what I’ve been pitching for past few years.
0:11:28 And Annette was one of the people I pitched it to.
0:11:32 And I convinced her.
0:11:34 Annette is Annette Eklizer, the person who
0:11:38 wound up being Daliel’s co-founder at Dalon Animal Health.
0:11:43 The fact Dalon is for Daliel and Annette Dalon.
0:11:45 We’ll be back in a minute to talk with Annette
0:11:49 about how she and Daliel turned Daliel’s basic research
0:11:53 into a vaccine that has now been used on millions of bees.
0:12:04 If you’re looking for a new podcast
0:12:07 but don’t know where to start, here’s one you can add to your list.
0:12:09 The Jordan Harbinger Show.
0:12:11 The Jordan Harbinger Show is aimed
0:12:13 at making you a better-informed critical thinker
0:12:17 so you can get a sense of how the world actually works
0:12:19 and come to your own conclusions about what’s happening.
0:12:23 Jordan talks to everyone from neuroscientists to CEOs
0:12:26 to astronauts, authors, and performers.
0:12:28 You might enjoy Jordan’s interview with historian
0:12:30 Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens,
0:12:34 A Brief History of Humankind, or his episode
0:12:37 with fool-me-once author Kelly Richmond-Pope
0:12:40 on how fraud became a trillion-dollar industry.
0:12:42 Whether Jordan’s conducting an interview
0:12:44 or giving advice to a listener, you’ll
0:12:46 find something useful that you can apply to your own life
0:12:49 in every episode of the Jordan Harbinger Show.
0:12:52 That could mean learning how to ask for advice the right way,
0:12:56 or it could just be discovering a slight mindset tweak that
0:12:58 changes how you see the world.
0:13:04 Search for the Jordan Harbinger Show, that’s H-A-R-B-I-N-G-E-R,
0:13:07 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio,
0:13:10 or wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:13:15 My name is Annette Kleiser, and I’m
0:13:18 the CEO of Dalan Animal Health.
0:13:23 How did you get into the B vaccine business?
0:13:25 By complete accident.
0:13:27 It was a complete accident.
0:13:34 I was at the University of Helsinki in 2018
0:13:35 to visit.
0:13:38 Darja Freitag happened to be in the office
0:13:43 while I was visiting, and the director called her in and said,
0:13:48 you have to meet these folks and tell them about your B vaccine.
0:13:50 And so she presented to us.
0:13:54 She came into the room, and I was just amazed.
0:13:59 I was just– we all know bees are dying.
0:14:03 We all know they are essential for our survival
0:14:04 around the world.
0:14:09 It’s a big issue, and we all throw our hands up.
0:14:14 And here is somebody that has an idea yet very early stage.
0:14:19 But still, it was an idea that we had to take.
0:14:22 And so we got together, and we talked.
0:14:25 And a few months later, we decided to start a company
0:14:26 and give it a try.
0:14:29 So you had been working in technology transfer
0:14:31 for years at this point, right?
0:14:33 And essentially helping universities
0:14:36 turn scientific ideas into companies.
0:14:39 You had never jumped ship before.
0:14:43 You had never seen an idea that made you say, holy cow,
0:14:47 I’m going to quit my job and go all in on this one idea.
0:14:49 Why this one?
0:14:57 Because it was so different and so urgent and so important.
0:15:02 It was not an incremental improvement
0:15:04 over existing technologies.
0:15:06 This was fundamental.
0:15:10 This was a game changer.
0:15:14 I mean, we all talk about game changers in innovation.
0:15:17 But here, there was a true game changer.
0:15:18 And yeah, you’re right.
0:15:23 I’ve been doing this job of looking at innovations
0:15:25 for 15 or 20 years.
0:15:28 And people often said, well, one day you’re
0:15:30 going to see this one thing.
0:15:32 And I said, I love my job.
0:15:34 I get to see different things all the time.
0:15:36 And it is fantastic, all this innovation,
0:15:39 all these amazing ideas.
0:15:41 And I get to be part of all of them.
0:15:45 But this couldn’t wait.
0:15:50 And it just grabbed me.
0:15:52 It grabbed me, and it was clear from the moment
0:15:55 I saw it that I had to do it.
0:15:57 Let’s talk about the B industry for a moment.
0:16:01 Let’s just do that.
0:16:02 I know almonds are a big deal.
0:16:04 But I want to even start zoomed out a little bit more.
0:16:08 So there was this moment some years ago
0:16:10 when everybody was talking about colony collapse.
0:16:13 And there was certainly alarming–
0:16:15 I don’t know whether it was alarmist kind of discourse
0:16:19 about, oh my god, bees are going to go away.
0:16:20 And then we’re going to be screwed because we
0:16:22 won’t be able to grow food anymore.
0:16:24 Plainly, that didn’t happen, right?
0:16:26 Like what– first of all, what was the deal with that?
0:16:28 And what happened?
0:16:36 So we lose about, on average, 40% to 60% of hives every year.
0:16:39 And it has proved sustainable just because people
0:16:42 are able to create new colonies constantly.
0:16:46 However, it gets more and more expensive.
0:16:55 The labor costs, the restoring the colonies, it’s really
0:16:59 putting a strain on beekeepers.
0:17:02 The worst case scenario did not come to pass.
0:17:05 But we’re still losing lots of colonies ever.
0:17:07 You’re far more than the historical norm.
0:17:09 That’s the state of play.
0:17:12 Now, on the sort of bee pollination industry
0:17:16 side, on the demand, like what is the market for honey bees?
0:17:21 Who is paying beekeepers to bring their hives
0:17:22 to the fields every year?
0:17:25 What’s that market look like in the US, in North America?
0:17:30 Well, 80% of the world almonds come from California.
0:17:34 So almonds are just a–
0:17:39 whether it’s through almond milk or in maasabahan,
0:17:40 I grew up with them on Christmas.
0:17:42 From my point of view, kind of an itch youth.
0:17:45 But go crazy, yes.
0:17:51 But apparently, almonds are used around the world.
0:17:54 And they don’t grow without honey bees.
0:17:56 They will not be a single almond.
0:18:06 So California brings in on large semi-trucks several million
0:18:09 hives every year from across the country
0:18:11 to pollinate for six weeks.
0:18:16 They’re put into the almond orchards and do their thing.
0:18:18 And so you have–
0:18:23 it’s like a big airport where many bees mingle and mix.
0:18:27 And they spread diseases.
0:18:31 And they spread diseases not among themselves,
0:18:33 but also to other insects.
0:18:37 After the almonds, they then go to Washington’s
0:18:41 for the apples, then to the pumpkins,
0:18:42 and over to Maine for the blueberries.
0:18:46 They go off and on the semi-trucks.
0:18:49 And I shipped across during the pollination season
0:18:54 until they end up in the center of the country,
0:18:58 or in the Midwest, where they then start honey production.
0:18:59 Interesting.
0:19:01 So once the pollination season is over,
0:19:03 the honey production starts.
0:19:06 And that’s the food industry.
0:19:09 And so it’s the same colony, like traveling around the country,
0:19:13 presumably multiple generations of bees, the same colony.
0:19:16 And it’s sort of an endless loop.
0:19:19 It’s like a traveling–
0:19:22 it’s like being on the road, like rock stars,
0:19:23 or a circus, or something.
0:19:24 That’s exactly right.
0:19:27 So it gets kicked off.
0:19:31 The season gets kicked off in February in California
0:19:32 with the almonds.
0:19:34 And then they just travel around.
0:19:37 And it ends in October when they are
0:19:40 ready for their winter hibernation
0:19:44 and get this day either go into cold storage,
0:19:47 where it’s big warehouses.
0:19:51 And then all starts over again with–
0:19:54 Then go back back to California for the almonds.
0:19:57 OK, so that is the context as far as bees go,
0:19:59 or bees in the United States.
0:20:02 Let’s go back to you and Dahliaal starting the company.
0:20:04 You meet her.
0:20:07 You guys decide to turn this basic research she’s
0:20:09 done into a company, into a real thing.
0:20:11 Like, what’s the state of play?
0:20:13 What are things like when you start the company?
0:20:17 So yeah, so her lab was closed down.
0:20:20 She was on her way to accept a position,
0:20:23 or accepted a position in Austria at the university.
0:20:25 So there was no lab.
0:20:27 There was a pending patent application
0:20:29 that the university had filed.
0:20:30 And that was it.
0:20:34 And I had her brain and–
0:20:36 You had her brain and a pending patent.
0:20:39 That was the company.
0:20:40 Exactly right.
0:20:44 And so we petitioned the university
0:20:47 to give us, to license us, the technology
0:20:51 so that we could find a company around it,
0:20:56 and also start raising money to finance this endeavor.
0:21:02 And then we had to develop a regulatory path
0:21:06 for getting something like this approved.
0:21:09 Now, if this was a chicken vaccine or a human vaccine
0:21:15 or dog vaccine, we would know what the regulatory path would
0:21:15 be.
0:21:17 We’d know how many animals we’d need.
0:21:19 We’d know how to manufacture it.
0:21:22 We’d know everything has been done before.
0:21:24 For 150 years, right?
0:21:28 Like, Pasteur made a chicken vaccine and a dog vaccine
0:21:31 before he made a human vaccine.
0:21:33 So he and none of this existed.
0:21:36 There was no regulatory framework.
0:21:39 Nobody ever made a vaccine for an insect before.
0:21:41 Nobody had ever done this before.
0:21:44 So tell me about the disease that you want to vaccinate against.
0:21:46 It’s called American fowl brood.
0:21:48 American fowl brood.
0:21:49 Fowl brood.
0:21:52 And it’s contrary to its name, it actually
0:21:55 exists in every country around the world.
0:21:58 And it is very contagious.
0:22:01 It’s like anthrax for bees.
0:22:05 So a few spores in a hive are sufficient to wipe out
0:22:07 your colony.
0:22:08 Highly contagious.
0:22:13 And if you do contract the disease,
0:22:16 you have to pour gasoline over the colony
0:22:20 and burn the hive, the colony, all your equipment,
0:22:22 everything that came in touch with it
0:22:24 and bury it under the ground.
0:22:29 That’s like a biblical injunction.
0:22:32 Or is what, all of the bees die, basically?
0:22:33 Everything dies.
0:22:36 And your bee suits, your equipment,
0:22:37 because everything that came in touch
0:22:44 with this contaminated hive can pass on the disease
0:22:45 to another hive.
0:22:48 And in some countries, all the hives
0:22:54 that were in a two mile radius have to be quarantined.
0:22:59 So moving restrictions, you can’t do anything with them
0:22:59 anymore.
0:23:01 So it affects your neighbor.
0:23:04 It’s also very costly.
0:23:05 The flowers don’t wait.
0:23:08 If you need to make honey, if you need to pollinate
0:23:10 and the disease hits your neighbor,
0:23:14 and all of a sudden, you can’t put your hives
0:23:16 into the almonds or the pumpkins,
0:23:20 you lose half of your annual income.
0:23:26 And so it’s just a really devastating disease.
0:23:28 And Daya had convincing data on it.
0:23:32 So we said, OK, let’s go after American Foul Brute
0:23:39 and see if we can tackle this as our first trial vaccine.
0:23:41 And so we generated new data.
0:23:44 We had our lead candidate for the vaccine.
0:23:48 And we set up a meeting with the USDA
0:23:51 to make our case, which was the first step,
0:23:54 that this is a vaccine and not something else.
0:23:58 And that what we’re doing is actually
0:24:02 giving in a controlled way this dead pathogen.
0:24:05 And it activates the immune system
0:24:07 and the animals are protected.
0:24:09 Presumably, when you’re going to the USDA,
0:24:11 the number of people who knows how to do a B vaccine trial is zero.
0:24:14 Nobody’s ever done it or has ever thought about it before.
0:24:16 As far as I know.
0:24:19 So you’ve got to actually make the vaccine, right?
0:24:20 So what is that?
0:24:26 So you take your pathogen and you grow it up.
0:24:27 Because it’s a bacteria, it grows.
0:24:30 In this case, this is the terrible American Foul Brute.
0:24:33 You’re growing American Foul Brute in the lab.
0:24:34 In the lab.
0:24:38 And then you inactivate it.
0:24:39 You kill it.
0:24:40 So it’s dead, dead, dead.
0:24:42 And you make sure it’s absolutely
0:24:46 there is nothing in there that survived.
0:24:49 Now you have the vaccine and you need to test it, right?
0:24:51 You need to essentially do a clinical trial.
0:24:54 But it’s a clinical trial of bees
0:24:56 to see if the vaccine works on them.
0:24:59 And my understanding is you have to start by vaccinating the queen bee.
0:25:02 And I’m curious just how that happens.
0:25:03 How do you do that?
0:25:08 They’re queen producers, queen breeders that make a queen.
0:25:13 And then the queen mates flies around in her mating flight.
0:25:18 And they catch her and put her into little plastic cages.
0:25:20 They’re called queen cages.
0:25:24 And with a few nurse bees, these are young bees.
0:25:27 They have just hatched.
0:25:32 And those bees feed royal jelly to the queen.
0:25:33 They’re called nurse bees?
0:25:35 Yeah, wow.
0:25:38 And these nurse bees are in the cage with her.
0:25:41 And in the cage is a sugar paste,
0:25:45 which is made of powdered sugar and corn syrup
0:25:47 or powdered sugar and water.
0:25:50 So different, but it’s a sugar paste.
0:25:53 And we put our vaccine, which is a liquid formulation,
0:25:56 into this sugar paste.
0:26:02 And the nurse bees will eat it, make royal jelly out of.
0:26:05 And the royal jelly now has pieces of the vaccine.
0:26:08 It’s what they feed to the queen.
0:26:10 Because the queen doesn’t like to eat herself.
0:26:11 She needs to be fed.
0:26:14 Amazing, like a true queen.
0:26:19 So you give the vaccine plus sugar paste to those nurse bees.
0:26:20 They eat it.
0:26:24 They make royal jelly with vaccine in it for the queen.
0:26:26 Then the queen eats that royal jelly.
0:26:28 And then what happens?
0:26:31 So we have like 50 queens sitting there.
0:26:33 Some of them get vaccinated.
0:26:35 Others get not vaccinated.
0:26:37 Researcher doesn’t know which one.
0:26:42 Randomize a good randomized, blinded trial.
0:26:46 We put them now out into real hives.
0:26:47 Out in the world.
0:26:49 They’re going to work.
0:26:50 They go out into the world.
0:26:52 And then we wait.
0:26:57 And the queen will emerge out of this little cage.
0:27:02 And if the hive accepts her, she will start laying eggs.
0:27:07 And after a few weeks, we will go into the hive
0:27:14 and take frames where the queen has laid the eggs.
0:27:18 Bring them back to the lab.
0:27:20 And we’ll take one day old larvae.
0:27:23 The researchers always tell me, you
0:27:25 know when they’re one day old when you barely can see them
0:27:26 or not at all.
0:27:27 OK.
0:27:30 A tiny, tiny larvae.
0:27:33 And these brood diseases, like American fowl brood,
0:27:36 they only hit the larvae in the first three days.
0:27:39 Once you make it, they’re like infant diseases.
0:27:42 You can only get sick when you’re a little child,
0:27:43 but not later.
0:27:44 And that’s the same here.
0:27:47 So we need to get these one day old larvae.
0:27:49 They put them in a little petri dish.
0:27:56 Feed them with larval food and bombard them with disease.
0:27:57 So what do you find?
0:27:59 So you have your control group and you
0:28:01 have your vaccinated group.
0:28:04 They’re getting bombarded with fowl brood.
0:28:06 What happens?
0:28:12 And we had between 30% to 50% higher survival in the lab.
0:28:19 And so based on that and based on all the other aspects
0:28:23 of vaccine development, of purity and safety
0:28:26 and all of this, the regulator said, OK,
0:28:29 we’re going to give you the market approval
0:28:34 and the authorization to sell on a conditional basis.
0:28:34 OK.
0:28:37 So we started selling.
0:28:42 We shipped the first vaccine in May of last year
0:28:43 to Albuquipa.
0:28:46 In May of 2023.
0:28:47 And how’s it going?
0:28:49 How’s it going now?
0:28:50 It’s going well.
0:28:51 It’s going well.
0:28:55 It was interesting because we didn’t do any advertising.
0:28:58 We didn’t do any promotion around it
0:29:03 because we felt it was such a new tool.
0:29:07 And we were such a small company
0:29:12 that we wanted to really work on the ground with beekeepers
0:29:16 to introduce this new product to see how does it
0:29:18 integrate into their operation.
0:29:20 So where are you now?
0:29:23 How many– how much vaccine are you selling?
0:29:25 How many bees are getting vaccinated?
0:29:33 I think there are probably 20 to 25,000 hives, colonies
0:29:34 vaccinated out there.
0:29:36 And you sell them in the US and Canada, is that right?
0:29:38 Yes, in Canada only.
0:29:42 So you found in the lab in these very harsh, intense lab
0:29:46 conditions that the vaccine reduced infection by 30
0:29:47 to 50%.
0:29:51 Do you have an estimate of its efficacy in the field?
0:29:56 Well, so far, none of the colonies out there
0:30:02 have tested positive or have shown American–
0:30:04 And you have tens of thousands of colonies
0:30:04 have been vaccinated.
0:30:07 And the number that have been found to have American Falbrood
0:30:08 is zero.
0:30:09 So that seems good.
0:30:10 Yes.
0:30:14 Do you have a next animal that you
0:30:17 want to try and vaccinate after bees?
0:30:17 Shrimp.
0:30:18 Shrimp.
0:30:20 Is that because shrimp are farmed for food?
0:30:23 Is that the setting where you would vaccinate shrimp?
0:30:24 Yes.
0:30:25 It’s food security.
0:30:26 Yeah.
0:30:29 And so is there a particular shrimp pathogen
0:30:31 that you’re working on?
0:30:33 It’s white spot syndrome.
0:30:37 It’s a virus and ribiosis, which is a bacteria.
0:30:38 Like more or less, when do you think
0:30:41 you’ll apply for approval for shrimp?
0:30:47 Probably if we’re lucky in two or three years.
0:30:52 So because we have shown that we can vaccinate and protect
0:30:56 a wild animal from viruses, from deadly viruses,
0:31:03 we’ve shown that we can protect a honeybee
0:31:07 from bacterial diseases and from fungal diseases.
0:31:11 So we can show that this is possible in insects
0:31:14 by activating the innate immune system.
0:31:19 We believe– and we know that this immune system is conserved
0:31:21 across invertebrates.
0:31:26 We believe we can use that same approach for shrimp,
0:31:33 for mosquitoes, for all kinds of animals that currently have–
0:31:36 that we rely on–
0:31:41 shrimp and bees– that are extremely important for our food
0:31:47 security and have no non-chemical sustainable ways
0:31:49 to protect them.
0:31:53 And then beyond that, take it into areas
0:31:56 that for these infectious– vector-based infectious
0:32:00 diseases that have a huge impact on human health,
0:32:02 where we also don’t have anything.
0:32:03 So it’s really, as Stalin, we want
0:32:08 to open up this entire space and really harnessing
0:32:11 the power of this immune system that is completely neglected.
0:32:13 Are you talking about mosquitoes?
0:32:16 Because the notion is you could vaccinate mosquitoes
0:32:18 against the pathogen that causes malaria.
0:32:20 Is that the idea there?
0:32:21 That’s the idea.
0:32:23 Or zika, or dengue.
0:32:26 And any mosquito-transmitted disease,
0:32:27 if you could vaccinate the mosquitoes,
0:32:29 they wouldn’t transmit disease.
0:32:31 So are you working on that one?
0:32:33 That would be my next one.
0:32:37 We’re not working on it yet.
0:32:39 We’ll be back in a minute with “The Lightning Ground.”
0:32:49 If you’re looking for a new podcast
0:32:50 but don’t know where to start, here
0:32:52 is one you can add to your list–
0:32:54 The Jordan Harbinger Show.
0:32:56 The Jordan Harbinger Show is aimed
0:32:59 at making you a better-informed critical thinker
0:33:02 so you can get a sense of how the world actually works
0:33:05 and come to your own conclusions about what’s happening.
0:33:08 Jordan talks to everyone from neuroscientists to CEOs
0:33:11 to astronauts, authors, and performers.
0:33:12 You might enjoy Jordan’s interview
0:33:15 with historian Yuval Noah Harari, the author of “Sapiens–
0:33:19 A Brief History of Humankind,” or his episode
0:33:22 with fool-me-once author, Kelly Richmond Pope,
0:33:25 on how fraud became a trillion-dollar industry.
0:33:27 Whether Jordan’s conducting an interview
0:33:29 or giving advice to a listener, you’ll
0:33:31 find something useful that you can apply to your own life
0:33:34 in every episode of “The Jordan Harbinger Show.”
0:33:37 That could mean learning how to ask for advice the right way,
0:33:41 or it could just be discovering a slight mindset tweak that
0:33:43 changes how you see the world.
0:33:46 Search for “The Jordan Harbinger Show,”
0:33:51 that’s H-A-R-B-I-N-G-E-R, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
0:33:55 iHeart Radio, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:34:01 OK, let’s do “The Lightning Ground.”
0:34:06 What was the best idea you ever saw before you met Dalio?
0:34:13 It was a refrigerator freezer where
0:34:17 you could freeze fruit without becoming all mushy.
0:34:22 Whatever happened to that idea?
0:34:25 I have no idea.
0:34:27 So as I understand it, you grew up
0:34:31 in a wine-growing region in Germany, and you’re into wine.
0:34:33 And so what I always want to know is,
0:34:37 what’s a good cheap bottle of wine that I can buy?
0:34:42 I mean, I’m partial to actually Spanish wines.
0:34:44 Like a Rioja?
0:34:45 Like, what should I buy?
0:34:48 Yeah, a Rioja or a Vedejo.
0:34:51 They are just amazing, amazing wines.
0:34:53 What’s one surprising thing you’ve
0:34:55 learned about bees since you started the company?
0:35:01 Seeing– well, the trans-generation immune priming
0:35:02 is pretty–
0:35:03 Well, that’s the big one.
0:35:06 That’s the big one, obviously.
0:35:08 But are there any other just like weird bee facts
0:35:11 that you know now that you didn’t know before?
0:35:17 I think understanding or looking at the superorganism,
0:35:19 how it works together.
0:35:23 Superorganism is this idea that the colony, the entire colony,
0:35:25 is sort of like an animal.
0:35:27 Like one animal.
0:35:29 Yeah.
0:35:33 The individual cannot survive on its own.
0:35:42 It needs everybody in the society of bees to make it,
0:35:46 to share information, to keep each other warm,
0:35:48 to feed each other all of that.
0:35:54 And that’s just amazing to see every single day.
0:35:58 Anetta Kleiser is the CEO of Dahliaan Animal Health.
0:36:00 I also did a lightning round with her co-founder,
0:36:04 the company’s chief scientific officer, Dahliaal Freitag.
0:36:09 Here’s that part of the interview now to close the show.
0:36:12 What’s your second favorite insect?
0:36:13 Ants.
0:36:14 Different ants.
0:36:18 I cannot pinpoint one species of ant, but yeah, ants.
0:36:19 Why ants?
0:36:21 What’s fascinating about them?
0:36:23 They have so many different adaptations.
0:36:25 You name it, they have it.
0:36:28 They can wage wars at each other.
0:36:32 They can count the size of the opposite army, literally.
0:36:35 They know if the opposite side is too big,
0:36:37 they need to run away.
0:36:40 If it’s smaller than they, they will engage in the battle.
0:36:42 They build structures.
0:36:43 They build houses.
0:36:47 They have farming.
0:36:51 They are fascinating, absolutely fascinating organism group.
0:36:55 What should I do to reduce the risk of getting stung by a bee?
0:36:58 Don’t go close to beehives.
0:37:00 Fair enough.
0:37:02 Well, also the other thing, what I would recommend,
0:37:05 if you have a bee close to you, do not panic.
0:37:06 Do not start waving around.
0:37:10 So keep your calm and bees appreciate it.
0:37:13 What’s one thing most people get wrong about bees?
0:37:17 I think a lot of people believe that the honeybee queen is
0:37:19 the one who rules the colony.
0:37:22 I kind of strongly disagree with that.
0:37:24 I think it’s the workers who are ruling the hive.
0:37:29 Because as soon as queen is not performing well enough anymore,
0:37:34 she’s going to be removed and the new queen will be raised.
0:37:37 So it’s really all for the hive, all for the common good.
0:37:40 And it’s not so much about her.
0:37:43 It’s about the hive.
0:37:49 So is a bee colony a socialist paradise?
0:37:53 Yeah, I guess you could say that.
0:37:54 Definitely.
0:37:58 I would not say it’s a monarchy, but it sounds like that.
0:38:01 I don’t think so.
0:38:03 The queen is working for the workers.
0:38:04 Yep.
0:38:08 I mean, she gets to leave a hive once in her life.
0:38:13 Rest of the time she spends inside and needs to produce offspring.
0:38:18 As soon as she fails, she will be replaced.
0:38:19 Yeah.
0:38:20 She’s got one job.
0:38:21 She’s got one job.
0:38:28 Today’s show was produced by Gabriel Hunter Chang.
0:38:33 It was edited by Lydia Jean Cotte and engineered by Sara Brugier.
0:38:37 You can email us at problem@pushkin.fm.
0:38:40 I’m Jacob Goldstein, and we’ll be back next week with another episode
0:38:41 of What’s Your Problem.
0:38:43 [MUSIC PLAYING]
0:38:56 If you’re looking for a new podcast but don’t know where to start,
0:39:01 here’s one you can add to your list, The Jordan Harbinger Show.
0:39:04 The Jordan Harbinger Show is aimed at making you a better informed critical
0:39:08 thinker so you can get a sense of how the world actually works
0:39:11 and come to your own conclusions about what’s happening.
0:39:14 Jordan talks to everyone from neuroscientists to CEOs
0:39:17 to astronauts, authors, and performers.
0:39:20 You might enjoy Jordan’s interview with historian Yuval Noah Harari,
0:39:24 the author of Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind,
0:39:28 or his episode with fool-me-once author, Kelly Richmond Pope,
0:39:31 on how fraud became a trillion-dollar industry.
0:39:35 Whether Jordan’s conducting an interview or giving advice to a listener,
0:39:38 you’ll find something useful that you can apply to your own life
0:39:41 in every episode of The Jordan Harbinger Show.
0:39:44 That could mean learning how to ask for advice the right way,
0:39:47 or it could just be discovering a slight mindset tweak
0:39:49 that changes how you see the world.
0:39:55 Search for The Jordan Harbinger Show, that’s H-A-R-B-I-N-G-E-R,
0:40:02 on Apple podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Dalial Freitak and Annette Kleiser are the co-founders of Dalan Animal Health, a company that has brought to market the first vaccine for insects. Their problem is this: How do you turn a discovery about insect immune systems into a vaccine that can protect the bees we need to grow everything from almonds to blueberries?
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