Bees produce nutrients for their gut bacteria

According to a Swiss study, bees themselves produce the ingredients needed by a certain type of intestinal bacteria when these are lacking in their diet. This newly discovered mechanism could play a role in understanding how vulnerable bees are to climate change, pesticides or new pathogens, according to a press release by the Federal Instittue of technology in Lausanne (EPFL) and the University of Lausanne (UNIL). For the study published this week in the journal Nature Microbiology, the researchers raised bees without intestinal bacteria and fed them sugar water exclusively. By examining the bacteria present in the bees' intestines, the researchers unexpectedly discovered the presence of the bacteria Snodgrassella alvi. This bacteria cannot metabolise sugar in order to develop. + All bee colonies in Switzerland are sick, warns specialist The fact that it colonised the bees' intestines even when sugar was the only food and no other bacteria were present initially puzzled the...