Breeding Healthier Honeybees With AlphaFold — Google DeepMind Skip to main content Explore our next generation AI systems Explore models Gemini Gemini Build intelligent agents Gemini Omni Create anything from anything Nano Banana Create and edit detailed images Gemini Audio Talk, create and control audio Specialized models Veo Generate cinematic video with audio Imagen Generate high-quality images from text Lyria Generate high fidelity music and audio World models & embodied AI Genie 3 Generate and explore interactive worlds Gemini Robotics Perceive, reason, use tools and interact Open models Gemma Build responsible AI applications at scale Our latest AI breakthroughs and updates from the lab Explore research Breakthroughs SIMA 2 An agent that plays, reasons, and learns with you Genie 3 Generate and explore interactive worlds AlphaGo Mastering the game of Go Gemini Robotics Perceive, reason, use tools and interact Learn more Evals Publications Responsibility Unlocking a new era of discovery with AI Explore science Breakthroughs AlphaFold Predict protein structures with high accuracy WeatherNext Fast and accurate AI weather forecasting AlphaEarth Map our planet in unprecedented detail AlphaEvolve Design advanced algorithms for math and applications in computing Learn more Gemini for Science Experimental Tools Science Skills Our mission is to build AI responsibly to benefit humanity About Google DeepMind Responsibility Ensuring AI safety through proactive security, even against evolving threats News Discover our latest AI breakthroughs, projects, and updates Careers We’re looking for people who want to make a real, positive impact on the world Learn more Education Our National Partnerships for AI Accelerator programs The Podcast Models Explore our next generation AI systems Explore models Gemini Gemini Build intelligent agents Gemini Omni Create anything from anything Nano Banana Create and edit detailed images Gemini Audio Talk, create and control audio Specialized models Veo Generate cinematic video with audio Imagen Generate high-quality images from text Lyria Generate high fidelity music and audio World models & embodied AI Genie 3 Generate and explore interactive worlds Gemini Robotics Perceive, reason, use tools and interact Open models Gemma Build responsible AI applications at scale Research Our latest AI breakthroughs and updates from the lab Explore research Breakthroughs SIMA 2 An agent that plays, reasons, and learns with you Genie 3 Generate and explore interactive worlds AlphaGo Mastering the game of Go Gemini Robotics Perceive, reason, use tools and interact Learn more Evals Publications Responsibility Science Unlocking a new era of discovery with AI Explore science Breakthroughs AlphaFold Predict protein structures with high accuracy WeatherNext Fast and accurate AI weather forecasting AlphaEarth Map our planet in unprecedented detail AlphaEvolve Design advanced algorithms for math and applications in computing Learn more Gemini for Science Experimental Tools Science Skills About Our mission is to build AI responsibly to benefit humanity About Google DeepMind Learn more Education Our National Partnerships for AI Accelerator programs The Podcast Responsibility Ensuring AI safety through proactive security, even against evolving threats News Discover our latest AI breakthroughs, projects, and updates Careers We’re looking for people who want to make a real, positive impact on the world Build with Gemini Try Gemini Google DeepMind Google AI Learn about all our AI Google DeepMind Explore the frontier of AI Google Labs Try our AI experiments Google Research Explore our research Products and apps Gemini app Chat with Gemini Google AI Studio Build with our next-gen AI models Google Antigravity Our agentic development platform Models Research Science About Build with Gemini Try Gemini November 25, 2025 ScienceBreeding healthier and stronger honeybees Share Copied AlphaFold’s insights show how tiny changes in the Vg protein affect resilience in honeybee colonies The world needs bees. These small but mighty insects help to pollinate a third of all crops we grow, from almonds to apples. But they are under threat, caught in a storm of habitat loss, pesticides, disease and a changing climate. In 2025, US honeybees suffered perhaps the largest colony die-off in the country’s history, close to 60% for managed honeybee colonies. If we can learn how to accelerate breeding programs for more resilient honeybees, we can improve our chances of reversing this trend. Vilde Leipart, a postdoctoral researcher at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, is among the many scientists racing to protect the planet’s bees. Her work focuses on a protein that’s central to keeping bee colonies healthy: vitellogenin (Vg). In honeybees, Vg is a molecular Swiss-army knife that helps bees resist disease, handle stress, feed offspring, and much more. Yet for decades, no one knew what it looked like. “Just a few years ago, we had a fragmented structural understanding of this protein,” says Leipart.” In 2021, she was able to use AlphaFold 2 to predict Vg’s shape in near-atomic detail, providing a glimpse of how it helps bees pass immunity from queen to offspring. It took me two days to do something that could have taken me years. Vilde Leipart Life Sciences Researcher In July 2025, those predictions, as well as other predictions from AlphaFold 3, were experimentally confirmed using a technique called electron microscopy. AlphaFold 3 also enabled Leipart and her colleagues to investigate how vitellogenin binds and reacts with other important molecules inside the bee. These insights show how tiny changes in the protein’s shape can ripple out to affect immunity and stress resistance across the colony, for example. This work also has implications beyond bees. Egg-laying species including fish, poultry, tree frogs, crocodiles and turtles all make Vg and are all vulnerable to a variety of infectious diseases. Understanding Vg’s basic functions in honeybees may reveal what it does in other egg-layers, potentially helping scientists protect vulnerable wild species and key farmed animals from infectious diseases and pesticides. The honeybee research is already moving from the lab to the hive in the form of AI-assisted honeybee breeding programs in the U.S. Breeding bees for traits such as parasite resistance is painstakingly slow. Each breeding cycle can take almost a year, as beekeepers raise queens and then test mature colonies to see if offspring develop the desired traits for resilience. Now, by linking the precise 3D structures of Vg to honeybee genetics, scientists can identify the most resilient bee variants before they become adults. Early trials suggest this could shorten generation times from months to weeks. It’s a nimble, data-driven way to help honeybee populations adapt faster to some of the threats driving their decline. By decoding this critical protein in such detail, Leipart and her collaborators hope to give honeybees a fighting chance and, in doing so, help secure the ecosystems and farms that depend on them. 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