A team of international researchers have unveiled that bees vaccinate their offspring naturally. The researchers came to know about the same while they were studying proteins in the blood of bees. The discovery could bring innovations in the way how we make food.

The researchers have explained how bees vaccinate their offspring. They do so in the same manner as humans do for their children. A pathogen in small amount is introduced to a body so that the immune system can fight the disease.

In a bee colony, it's the queen bee that gives birth to all insects in a hive, but does not leave the nest. Therefore, worker bees have to get her royal jelly of pollen and nectar, which is mixed with pathogens. When she eats that jelly, it breaks it in the gut.

Pathogens are then transferred in the queen bee's fat body, and it get packaged onto a protein called vitellogenin and delivered to eggs through queen's blood stream. Resultant of that, the newly hatched bee larvae have immune system for their protection.

The researchers have affirmed that this process is not able to protect bees from all diseases, like American Foul Brood, the deformed wing virus and the nosema fungi. Study's author Gro Amdam from Arizona State University, said, "Because this vaccination process is naturally occurring, this process would be cheap and ultimately simple to implement. It has the potential to both improve and secure food production for humans".