The simple bee gut microbiome (BGM) provides multiple beneficial effects for honey bees and their colonies ( 2), ranging from endocrine stimulation that affects feeding and weight gain ( 3) to immune stimulation and enhanced resistance to infection by pathogens ( 4 – 6). Thus, probiotic treatments using cultured bee gut bacteria may ameliorate harmful perturbations of the gut microbiota caused by antibiotics or other factors.Ĭolonies of the Western honey bee ( Apis mellifera) are an actively cultivated agricultural resource accounting for ∼$11.7 billion (2009) in pollination services in the United States alone ( 1). We observed highly variable responses, including large differences among strains of both S. Finally, we measured tylosin tolerance of core bee gut bacteria by plating cultured isolates on media with different tylosin concentrations.
Probiotic exposure increased survival of bees from both control and tylosin-treated hives.
We then tested whether a probiotic cocktail of core bee gut species could bolster pathogen resistance. Bees from hives treated with tylosin died more quickly after being fed a bacterial pathogen ( Serratia marcescens) in the laboratory. Tylosin treatment reduced bacterial species richness and phylogenetic diversity and reduced the absolute abundances and strain diversity of the beneficial core gut bacteria Snodgrassella alvi and Bifidobacterium spp. This study examined how a realistic hive treatment regimen of tylosin affected the gut microbiota of bees and susceptibility to a bacterial pathogen. One of the few antibiotics approved in apiculture is tylosin tartrate. Antibiotics have been applied to honey bee ( Apis mellifera) hives for decades to treat Paenibacillus larvae, which causes American foulbrood disease and kills honey bee larvae.
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