First, I think it's important not to disrupt the microbes in a healthy hive.

Second, as you already mentioned, I think you can often set a hive on the right track by giving it a frame of brood and pollen from a healthy hive. Think of it as the "germ theory of health". You want to share germs from those that are healthy.

Any other actions pretty much require more knowledge than we currently have. We don't know for sure what beneficial organisms to innoculate them with, but we can be reasonably sure that a healthy hive has at least some of them.

 

Watched the scientific activities by the Swedish scientists for years. They came out with this product and I start using it from next Spring on. Will report if anyone is interested. To me it does make sense to inoculate the hive with bee microbes just to give them a start. Just like starting off a sourdough or honey mead. Inoculate it and it runs by itself.

http://symbeeotic.apicellae.se/

 

Okay, so how is this different from the probiotics fed to emerging bees? What part of the biome in the hive, or the microbiome in the bees, are these microbes for?

This is getting pretty interesting. Maybe "everybody" knows but me, and I appreciate the opportunity to learn.

For me, a backyard beekeeper in a city environment, I'm not sure of the applications. I guess my main interest is in helping the bees to survive mites and other infestations, without much if any treatment, and I'm wondering how microbes fit into that picture.

 

At the symposium yesterday, Ramona told us something I didn't quite get, that antimicrobial treatments common in the industry have completely eradicated certain strains of bacteria in most parts of the world, but not in Switzerland and New Zealand. Ah, here's a link:

After Decades of Antibiotic Treatment of Honeybee Colonies, Tetracycline-resistant Bacteria Often Found in US Bees

And that even Dee Lusby's bees, which haven't been exposed to treatment for 25+ years, are no different. So it seems like one area to explore is intercontinental inoculations...

 

Sorry I wasn't more clear. What I was discussing was honeybee gut bacteria showing resistance to antibiotics, not eradication of the bacteria.

Dee Lusby's bees are dramatically different from bees in the US that have been routinely treated with antibiotics. Her bee's gut bacteria more closely resemble gut bacteria from bees in parts of the world that have never been treated with antibiotics.

Although Dee's bees have not been treated in over 25 years, their gut microbes still show
more antibiotic resistance than bees from places that have never been treated.

Here is a link to a more detailed analysis from the study done by the Moran Lab.


http://beeuntoothers.com/index.php/...dex.php/beekeeping/articles/105-antibiotic-resistant-gut-microbes-in-honey-bees


Am at airport with my fussy tablet waiting for delayed flight back to Boston...we had a great time at the Philly meeting!

Ramona

 

What I was discussing was honeybee gut bacteria showing resistance to antibiotics, not eradication of the bacteria.

Bacteria were eradicated that had no resistance, which is evidence of extensive long-term impact of chemical treatments on the microbial environment.

 

Thanks, that was worth sharing. As a guy who studied symbiosis of this sort several decades ago, I'm surprised that this has not been done more completely by now.

 

>Bacteria were eradicated that had no resistance, which is evidence of extensive long-term impact of chemical treatments on the microbial environment.

That is what worries me. People like to discount impacts on the microbes and act like everything will get back to normal in a few days or weeks or months, but actually they may never get back to normal.

 

I have inoculated syrup and milk with probiotic bacteria and fed the fermented 'Beegurt' to my bees.

I've also used honey to ferment syrup and milk. I didn't feed it to my bees though.

So, Kofu, there is a practical way to do this.

However, it's still highly experimental.

 

I have inoculated syrup and milk with probiotic bacteria and fed the fermented 'Beegurt' to my bees.
...
So, Kofu, there is a practical way to do this. However, it's still highly experimental.

What kind of probiotic bacteria? What's the target, to get it into the 'honey stomach' where it will help make better honey, or ... ?

Learning the keywords. A search for 'probiotics' turns up another thread:

Whatever your means of supplementation, there have been several scientific studies done that have concluded that adding probiotics to pollen supplement or syrup increases fat body weight and improves brood health and longevity

I'm learning all sorts of things here. Didn't quite realize there are commercial products such as Biogen-N, Trilac and Enterolactis Plus. (I skip that part of the catalogs.) Some of what I've seen says bacteria and fungii normally come with the pollen and nectar, so is the main reason for these products that emerging bees fed on high-fructose corn syrup are going to need pro-biotic supplements to help them digest it? Are these products designed for use by bees that have been flooded with antibiotics earlier, so they may not have the bacteria they need to survive, for themselves and to pass along to the youngsters in the colony?

That aspect doesn't seem so highly experimental, with the three citations given. What are you doing that's different from that?

How does this fit into a larger picture of a microbial environment engrained into how a honeybee colony operates?

 

Kofu:

You're asking a whole bunch of questions at once. Step back a minute and clear your mind.

We know that Honeybees carry symbiotic bacteria, like lactic acid bacteria (LAB), in their honey stomachs that not only help them to maintain their own health, but are also important in fermenting honey and fermenting pollen into beebread.

We also know that organic acids, like lactic acid, have been used to control Varroa.

As an example, I've been able to get syrup and milk to ferment down into the lower pH 3 range. That's well within the effective range for treating Varroa.

There are other reasons to use probiotics in syrup. I wanted to try to improve its nutritional content for instance.

There's a lot we don't know at this point about the benefits of probiotics in beekeeping.

However, the possibilities are worth exploring.

I haven't, as yet, tried to ferment syrup and milk using fresh nectar or beebread.

But, I do know that raw honey, from around the world, does work.

It's like a whole new world waiting to be explored.

What's truly remarkable is that you can do this in your own kitchen.

 

There's a lot we don't know at this point about the benefits of probiotics in beekeeping.
However, the possibilities are worth exploring.
It's like a whole new world waiting to be explored.

WLC, very well said.

 

Keith, what's interesting is that I've also used LAB to ferment soy flour.

I bought some soy flour that was marked down (it was warm to the touch), and I fermented a sample of it in water with some LAB.

There are a lot of possibilities in applying fermentation to issues in beekeeping.

 

Let me see if I can explain things.

The alimentary canal (mouth through gut and rectum) is a long tube. The environment wrt suitability for each of the core bacterial species varies dynamically...sometimes gradually and sometimes suddenly...as one travels down the canal, or observes different sections of it.
The illium is particularly suited for some specific strains that are novel and highly integrated into the cells of the bee. Last I knew, they had been unable to do a proper genome map of this strain because their diversity varies so much within each bee that they were unable to isolate a monoclonal sample (required to map the genome). These bacteria were not culturable by any of the means they had attempted and remain somewhat a mystery.

Presumably the use of antibiotics introduces levels (and/or concentrations) of 'naturally occurring antibacterial compounds' is many orders of magnitude higher than those produced and used by the existing (and proper) microbiotia of the hive, or really anywhere on the planet...the metabolic cost for nature to produce toxins of the concentration of terramycen powder is demonstrably prohibitive....therefore the cost that a robust complex culture would have to bear in order to be resilient as a whole against such concentrations of 'natural substances like antibiotics' is (and has been for 50 million years) too high a cost to bear against such an impossible level of toxin.

The (even single) antibiotic 'incident' is traumatic to the microflora...you can see that in the data and slides from the Moran study. The percentage of antibiotic resistance levels in bees recently treated, long ago treated, and never treated show antibiotic resistance levels to go down between 'incidents'...this is because such resistance is expensive to maintain in the population, and without exposure, it is largely selected against.

_but_ the incident itself hasn't just magically removed genes, it has almost certainly removed whole lines variation within the strains. It has selected (probably several times in the history of any bees that are kept in the US recently or not), for only the individual strains that could resist the unprecedented levels of toxin survive.

The result, after 'recovery' is a drastic thinning of the variation, and most certainly the niche specific subtle variation in genetic diversity...the continuum of gross and subtle traits that follow the continuum of niche through the alimentary canal.

Ever go to a restaurant that was unexpectedly understaffed and the managers were trying to serve the tables and cook the food?

This thinning of the diversity of the gene pool of gut microbes by selecting for antibiotic resistance is a trauma to the system. The data shows that even after 26+ years, the impact (and no doubt damage) to the heritable complex microbial ecosystem of the hive is still measurable.

It would be like selecting (eugenicly speaking) 'the next generation of humans' solely on the individuals ability to win weight lifting competitions.

deknow

 

My wife's (Ramona) obsession with the microbial component of the hive led to, I believe the first modern public presentation to beekeepers (the Nebraska state conference at the invitation of Michael Bush, the program director at the time). This presentation was given in November of 2008, and she cites and/or quotes from most of the literature available at that time...the first time that I'm aware that anyone has done this.

I think I do have video of this, and someday might get that up, but you could download the mp3 from our site as a 'cell cast'. 1.5 hours.
deknow

http://beeuntoothers.com/index.php/beekeeping/audiovideo/98-2008-microbe-talk

 

Somewhere around 99% of the gut microbiota is in eight distinct groups (three of them named after Gilliaiam, Von Frisch, and Snodgrass). The other 1% is likely also significant and important, but this is obviously where the bulk of the research will focus.
When we are talking about diversity, we are talking about within these 8 groups.

deknow

 

...and anyone interested to see what the mainstream beekeeping world's reaction to these concepts could try looking at the discussions on Bee-L in November of 2008.

edit: In fact, it was so bad that Michael Palmer (who was also speaking and whom I'd never met before) came up to me, and the first words out of his mouth were, "I think it's terrible what they are doing to you over on Bee-L".

That was a great conference...Dee, Michaels' Bush and Palmer, Ramona, me....we had a 'microbe party' in our (deserted) hotel...everyone bring something made by microbes...beer, wine, cheese, bread, salami...

Ramona and I bought 2 bottles of wine to make sure there was something to start with, about 50 people showed up, we collected donations for pizzas and watched "Queen of Trees" on PBS (get ahold of this video from the Nature series).

In the end, the pizza and the tip were covered exactly (to the dollar) by what people had just given with their own judgement. The wine we bought had been drank, but there were 2 unopened bottles remaining in the morning, and we didn't want to check bags. We brought them to the liquor store next door where we had purchased our bottles (and these had come from there as well, it was the next building over from the hotel), explained our situation, and they took them back with no hassle.

Even Steven....a perfect ecosystem

deknow

 

It seems like the next set of questions is, "How?" How do we put that sort of information to practical use?

I think the most important thing is to stop selecting (even occasionally) for microbes that can resist antibiotics, or those that can repopulate the fastest after an organic acid or thymol treatment. Even intermittent exposures are well beyond what we can expect a well balanced and robust ecosystem to withstand and bounce back from...it just isn't evolved to maintain genes after such a trauma.

Yesterday, at our Natural Beekeeping Symposium, Laurie R. Herboldsheimer gave a great introduction to this topic — "The Importance of the Microbial Environment in the Beehive." The Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild should have the video up sometime soon. (I'll post the link.)

Here are some practical questions:

How does it work to share comb between hives? Within an apiary? from apiary to apiary? What criteria for sharing (or not sharing)?

I can't give you a prescription, but Dee Lusby (who's bees are in the Moran study) brings comb in to extract while replacing them with combs from the previous days extraction from a different yard. All comb is deep, and there is no distinction between brood and honey frames. No treatments, no artificial feeds, very clean environment, and very different results in antibiotic resistance than the bees about 30-40 miles away at the Tucson Bee Lab that haven't seen antibiotics in 2+ years.
That is one working model that I can cite that is no doubt spreading things between yards.

What factors affect the biome in the hive? and the microbiome in the bees' guts, etc.? — especially the factors that beekeepers can affect?

There is no question. The easyist thing for the beekeeper to affect...the low hanging fruit is also the thing that is having the most negative impact on the microbitota (by negative, I mean hard selection for a metabolically expensive trait that otherwise is of no use). It is what the beekeeper is putting in the hive. Fluvalinate and Coumaphos are consistently found in the highest rates and concentrations of any synthetic pesticides...even on trapped pollen because the bees collecting them are contaminated....by the beekeeper.

Essential oils are devistating to microbial cultures...that what they designed for.

Organic acids are used for sterilization...and when formic acid is removed from the hive, the concentration of the acid in the air inside the hive _goes up_...from the bees themselves releasing the acid they had been sequestering in their tiny lungs and bodies.

 

I've been asking about Thymol/Apiguard, mainly because that's what I used last year. But what about Oxalic Acid, the new up-and-coming, low cost, "semi-natural" treatment?

What's the impact of Oxalic Acid on the microbiome? Both in the hive, generally, and inside the bees?

I'm thinking that the general environment in the hive is fairly antiseptic, with all the propolis around — except in the bee bread which gets a lot of its microbes from the flowers, with a little dab of nectar from the honey stomach. How many beneficial microbes live on the outside of the bees? They don't have colonies of germs on their skin like humans do, right?

I think the most important thing is to stop selecting (even occasionally) for microbes that can resist antibiotics, or those that can repopulate the fastest after an organic acid or thymol treatment. Even intermittent exposures are well beyond what we can expect a well balanced and robust ecosystem to withstand and bounce back from ... it just isn't evolved to maintain genes after such a trauma. ...
Organic acids are used for sterilization ... and when formic acid is removed from the hive, the concentration of the acid in the air inside the hive _goes up_ ... from the bees themselves releasing the acid they had been sequestering in their tiny lungs and bodies.

FatBeeMan says oxalic acid is good for killing tracheal mites, as well as varroa, which means the bees do take it up into their tiny lungs and bodies just as with formic acid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQp9pdAOjdo​

With Oxalic Acid, the mortality rate for the bees is low, in the short run at least, and effectiveness against varroa is high. But! How do we factor in the microbial perspective?

Bees keep reservoirs of microbes in their honey stomach and lower intestines. If they have ways to repopulate the general microbial community from those reserves, how heavily are the microbes affected by Oxalic Acid vapor treatments? The selection process Dean explains above is obviously important. What are the specific ways it may play out?

It seems like the model is that Treatment Free beekeepers foster bees and their associated microbial communities, in order to get to a place (perhaps we're there already) where the bees can survive with a certain level of varroa mite infestation. For example, hygenic bee behaviors keep down the mite levels, in combination with robust immune systems which allow the bees to hold off the viral infections and other diseases that are often what really kill the bees.

In that model, any treatment that selects for other conditions (e.g., for microbes that can survive exposure to lower pH than is usual in a hive) is taking us down another path, to a different place, where the "metabolic cost" of having adapted to low pH treatments may reduce the ability of microbes in the bee-gut to support the robust immune system.

What other effects can we trace — via microbial ecology — from Oxalic Acid treatment to handicaps for bees and their normal life sustaining processes and their fight against infestation and disease?

 

dean, to what degree has the level of understanding regarding microbial ecology in the hive been advanced since 2008, and is mainstream beekeeping paying more attention than it was then?

 

Gilliam's work suggests that feeding and/or caging bees affects yeasts, fungi, and bacteria in the bee.
No such 'modern' work is yet being done. The current need is to study the basic functions, and will likely occupy the researchers for years.
Sugar syrup is a near ideal pH for most microbial bee diseases.
Work by Samataro and Yoder shows HFCS alters the balance of various fungi in beebread.

deknow

 

The biggest change has been the use of non culture based techniques to see the relative abundance of specific microbial strains.


Deknow

 

understood, thanks dean. for you or mb, where does the number 'over 8000' come from pertaining to the number of different microorganisms found in the beehive?

 

....from Martha Gillian's work. Some to much of that she found is likely incidental stuff that grows well in a petri dish. The entire body of her work came be downloaded from our website.

Deknow

 

thanks again deknow. have you come across anything in your review of the literature that suggests feeding syrup alters bee gut microbiota?

 

If it does alter the mirobiota, will changing Ph of sugar water to approximate that of honey prevent the alteration?

 

Here's a new look:

"Honey Bees Avoid Nectar Colonized by Three Bacterial Species, But Not by a Yeast Species, Isolated from the Bee Gut"

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0086494#pone-0086494-g003

I found it interesting that bees preferred artificial nectar inoculated with a yeast but not L. kunkeei.

 

did i read it wrong? looks like the bees were neutral to the yeast inoculated 'nectar'.

like most good studies, this one generates more questions (grant proposals) than answers.

my take away - bees are picky eaters.

 

I would call it 'basic research'.

However, its value to those interested in using probiotics is that 'nectar' inoculated with a non LAB species (a yeast) was preferred over L. Kunkeei.

It could point the way to making fermented syrup that more closely matches Honeybee's nectar foraging preferences, for instance.

PS-did you notice the pH of the nectar inoculated with the yeast? It was in the 3-4 range.

 

I would be surprised if yeasts and bacteria in nectar contributed anything to the core (99% of the population) species...the foraging bees encountering these have well established microbial communtites.

Tobias and Alejandra (the Swedes) did document shifts in the flora with nectar flow, but it isn't clear if that is because of microbes in the nectar, or a change in the hospitablity of the gut do to different characteristics of the food source.

The other 1% likely has some (perhaps significant) unrecognized role, but it will be a while before these get looked at closely.

I agree with Squarepeg that WLC misstates things when he claims, "preferred artificial nectar inoculated with a yeast".
Perhaps you want to read the study (or even the conclusions) and then comment?
...but my reading is that it seemed to be the metabolites of the microbial fermentation that was being measured, not the actual presence of the cultures.

 

The 'preferred' yeast isolated from the Honeybee's gut is commonly found in nectar.

>I agree with Squarepeg that WLC misstates things when he claims, "preferred artificial nectar inoculated with a yeast".<

It's in the second figure of the paper.

 

It's in the second figure of the paper.

Really? You really are just going to look at the picture...at that picture, and not see that the 'preference' wasn't consistent, and not significantly a preference.
From the discussion:

Specifically, our data indicate that honey bees prefer nectar free of colonies of the three aerobic bacterial species we isolated from the bee gut, whereas the nectar-inhabiting yeast M. reukaufii had no effect on bees’ feeding preference.

 

That's why I wrote 'preferred'. It was preferred over L. kunkeei.

Here's a recent paper on that yeast (Metschnikowia reukaufii ):

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1574-6941.12284/abstract

It's an interesting species.

"Jack of all nectars, master of most: DNA methylation and the epigenetic basis of niche width in a flower living yeast"

http://ebd06.ebd.csic.es/pdfs/Herrera.et.al.2011_2.Mol.Ecol.pdf

 

That's why I wrote 'preferred'. It was preferred over L. kunkeei.

BS (and I don't mean Beesource).

You stated:

I found it interesting that bees preferred artificial nectar inoculated with a yeast but not L. kunkeei.

...the 'but not' indicates that you are comparing each to a control. The bees had no preference for the yeast, but were less attracted to the bacteria.

I don't know much about the tagging feature here, but I'm betting this one is headed to 'WLC follies'.

deknow