Differential Bacterial Community of Bee Bread and Bee Pollen Revealed by 16s rRNA High-Throughput Sequencing

Abstract

We investigated the bacterial community of bee bread and bee pollen samples using an approach through 16 s rRNA high-throughput sequencing. The results revealed a higher bacterial diversity in bee bread than in bee pollen as depicted in taxonomic profiling, as well as diversity indices such as the Shannon diversity index (3.7 to 4.8 for bee bread and 1.1 to 1.7 for bee pollen samples) and Simpson’s index (>0.9 for bee bread and 0.4–0.5 for bee pollen). Principal component analysis showed a distinct difference in bacterial communities. The higher bacterial diversity in the bee bread than bee pollen could presumably be due to factors such as storage period, processing of food, fermentation, and high sugar environment. However, no effect of the feed (rapeseed or oak pollen patties or even natural inflow) was indicated on the bacterial composition of bee bread, presumably because of the lack of restriction of foraged pollen inflow in the hive. The diverse bacterial profile of the bee bread could contribute to the nutritional provisioning as well as enhance the detoxification process; however, a thorough investigation of the functional role of individual bacteria genera remains a task for future studies.

Microbial Diversity in Bee Species and Bee Products: Pseudomonads Contribution to Bee Well-Being and the Biological Activity Exerted by Honey Bee Products: A Narrative Review

“…Foragers collect nectar as the major source of carbohydrates and pollen in order to satisfy their need for lipids, proteins, vitamins, and other nutrients [45,46]. Recently, Powell et al (2023) reported that a pollen-free diet in honey bees suppressed the expression of genes related to development, suggesting the necessity of pollen in honey bee nutrition [47].…”

“…In the first few days after evolving from the pupal stage to adults, before leaving the hive [39], honey bees (Apis mellifera) acquire bacterial symbionts, localized in the hindguts, through social contacts with nurse bees [83] and from parts of the nest milieu such as bee bread, combs, and cell cleaning [30,84]. The typical microbial gut community of worker bees does not change dramatically when workers shift to foragers, suggesting that the adult gut community is stable and distinct [46,82]. A consistent gut microbiome transmission occurs after 3-5 days [35,39] from nurses that stay in the nest to feed the brood [22,37].…”

Study on the Dynamics of Microflora during Natural Fermentation of Different Blueberry Wines

“…MiSeq sequencing was obtained from Pair-End (PE) double-end sequence data using Trimmomatic and Pear to quality control the measured Fastq data to obtain a Fasta sequence; then, using Flash and Pear, the two-end sequence was spliced (merged) according to the overlapping relationship of PE. Finally, to obtain raw-tags, we had to remove the chimeras of Fasta sequences by the chime method according to the known database and by the selfcomparison (denovo) method for the unknown database, and remove the short sequences that did not meet the requirements to obtain high-quality sequences of clean-tags [12].…”

Rapeseed bee pollen alleviates chronic non‐bacterial prostatitis via regulating gut microbiota

“…Studies suggest that rapeseed bee pollen and its extracts can modulate gut microbiota composition and improve gut health. For example, rapeseed bee pollen extract increased the abundance of beneficial bacteria, such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium , in the guts of mice with induced colitis 21,22 . Rapeseed bee pollen extract was able to modulate the gut microbiota composition and improve the symptoms of type 2 diabetes in rats 23 .…”

“…For example, rapeseed bee pollen extract increased the abundance of beneficial bacteria, such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, in the guts of mice with induced colitis. 21,22 Rapeseed bee pollen extract was able to modulate the gut microbiota composition and improve the symptoms of type 2 diabetes in rats. 23 However, it has remained unclear whether wall-disrupted rapeseed bee pollen can better alleviate prostate disease via gut microbiota.…”