Responses of honey bee colonies to supplemental feeding with probiotic bacteria
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| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | Recent colony losses have led to increased interest in the research of honey bee gut microbiota. Social bees host in their digestive tract characteristic microbiota and according to recent hypotheses, this plays a significant role in their health. Within our study, two lactobacilli of the Firm-5 cluster and one Gilliamella apicola strain isolates were administered in triplicates to colonies by spraying over the brood frames, either as single strains or in combinations. Data about gut microbial diversity of young bees and larvae (using denaturating gel electrophoresis of 16S DNA V3 region), plasma antioxidant activity (TRAP) and net hive colony weight were recorded weekly for two weeks prior the experiment and six weeks after. Administration of single strains or the mixture resulted in a slightly better performance (not significant). Whereas the net weight of the control dropped by 18.7% due to lack of forage, this drop was lower in hives treated with any bacterial suspension, averaging 8.5% for all treatments. Relatively best performance was seen for the mixture. The administration, however, had no effect on antioxidative capacity of the hemolymph, which tended to decrease after the administration (with the exception of Gilliamella sp., not significant). Expectedly, administration changed the profile of lactic acid bacteria in the gut, which persisted throughout the experiment. Due to limited experiment size, we did not see any significant effect. The slight increase in performance suggests positive role, which is probably not expressed into the tested biochemical parameters (Supported by NAZV QJ1530148 and NAZV QJ1210047) |
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