Bee microbiota study

[YaleBees]

Hi, I work in a lab that investigates the microorganisms that live in the digestive systems of bees. We are looking for beekeepers who would like to donate a few specimens to our study. Very little is understood about these microbes and their function in the bee gut. Your participation could help in understanding these very important relationships.
We are looking for small donations (~10-20 bees per colony from up to 4 colonies) from any setting: ie. rural, urban, hobby, commercial, conventional or organic.

See more information at our website http://www.yale.edu/moran/bees.html or contact me at jenkyn.powell@yale.edu to receive a collection kit.

[Walliebee]

I would be happy to help out. Sounds like a great project. I'll send you an email.

[WLC]

I hope that you've read this one:

http://www.biomedcentral.com/content...2-6785-6-4.pdf

If you're interested in different species, although I can't give you a direct link:

>Bacteria in the gut of Japanese honeybee, Apis cerana japonica,
and their antagonistic effect against Paenibacillus larvae, the causal agent
of American foulbrood
Mikio Yoshiyama *, Kiyoshi Kimura<

[YaleBees]

Dr. Jay Evans, an author on that study, is one of our collaborators.

[Walliebee]

I'm going to give this a friendly bump. I can remember many threads here about lost bees, CCD, Nosema sp., and the frustrations it brought to us as beekeepers. We were wanting answers to why our bees were dying.

This is your chance to help find answers and possible solutions. Dr. Moran (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Dept. Yale) and Dr. Evans (USDA Bee Research-Beltsville, MD) are excellent researchers. They, along with their labs and students from Rugers needs samples from a broad geographical area to gain the best data in this project. Let's give them the means to get some good research data. Please donate some bees!

[WLC]

Just a thought yalebees:

If you are going to do expression studies (cDNA libraries), you might consider sending out the 50ml Conical tubes along w/ RNAlater. I don't think that everyone will have 95% ethanol on hand either.

I take it that you plan on sequencing extracts with an emulsion PCR technology.

Have you thought about using Honey as well? Sealed, comb honey could prove to be an excellent source of some of the sequences that you are looking for, as well a wealth of other information about the hive environment. No ethanol, or anything else, required. Plus, it would be alot easier for a beekeeper to do.

[YaleBees]

@Walliebee thanks for the bump. It's a great group to be a part of.
@WLC Thank you for your input. We are sending out kits with 95% Ethanol. I think someone should look directly at honey (I know Jay Evans has done some interesting work in this regard). Really, I believe many more researchers should be paying attention to bees.

[Roland]

Yalebees - Are you aware of the work being done at U of Wis in Madison on the same subject? I donated a frame of CCD to them many years ago. I could probably find contact information.

Roland

[Jack Grimshaw]

I spent a couple of hours Sat with Eli Powell(YaleBees).We sampled 4 hives in 2 yards plus 2 feral colonies.
He would like to get samples from all over the country and all you beeks need to step up to the plate.
We need to show that Beesource members support bee research and it won't cost you a dime,just a little bit of your time.

[WLC]

Uh, Jack.

I think you might want to remember that sometimes, these studies need to be done 'in the blind'.

Good Luck Yale bees.

[bigevilgrape]

I do have a hard time killing my bees (yes I know they get squished all the time when I inspect them), but I think I can suck it up for science.

[Jack Grimshaw]

WLC
Not sure what you mean by "blind"
The "team" picture is on the web page and my name is on the data collection sheet.

Do you keep bees in NYC

[Vance G]

I will gladly participate in about ten days. Please PM me for contact information.