A vaccine intended to protect honeybees from a range of viruses has been conditionally approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a historic breakthrough as the first-ever vaccine approved for an insect in the country. Georgia-based biotech company Dalan Animal Health developed the vaccine that could help reverse the declining global population of honeybees, an insect crucial to the world’s food system. Honeybees have faced threats from climate change, pesticides and habitat loss, with the vaccine seeking to strengthen their immunity against American foulbrood, an aggressive bacterium that can wipe out entire colonies of bees. Annette Kleiser, the chief executive of Dalan, lauded the vaccine as a “huge breakthrough.” “Bees are livestock and should have the same modern tools to care for them and protect them that we have for our chickens, cats, dogs and so on,” she said.