Probiotics

[RosieMc]

Has anyone given probiotics to their bees?

I thought I may add a capsule to patties. Research has been done, but it doesn't indicate how much and I do not want to harm them

After searching the web I came across Michael Bush's comments on Beesource on 03 04 2008 at 9.09pm. http://www.beesource.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-216617.html

also
http://www.apinews.com/pdf/apimondi...source_of_probiotic_microflora-dubna_sona.pdf

http://www.ibra.org.uk/articles/20080612_84

 

[Polyanwood]

I didn't know bees needed probiotics. I think the evidence about human probiotics is dubious enough. I came across this treat when I was reading up ways of improving IBS...

Bacterial Replacement Therapies Work
So if IBS patients are missing 25% of the thousand or so species that should populate the gut, or 250 species, and if common probiotics provide only 8 or so species and not the ones that are missing, how are the missing species to be restored?

The answer is simple but icky. Recall that half the dry weight of stool consists of bacteria. A healthy person daily provides a sample of billions of bacteria from every one of the thousand species in his gut. They are in his stool.

So a “fecal transplant” of a healthy person’s stool into the gut of another person will replenish the missing species.

Scientists have known for a long time that this was likely to be an effective therapy, but it is only now entering clinical practice. The New York Times recently made a stir by telling this story:

In 2008, Dr. Khoruts, a gastroenterologist at the University of Minnesota, took on a patient suffering from a vicious gut infection of Clostridium difficile. She was crippled by constant diarrhea, which had left her in a wheelchair wearing diapers. Dr. Khoruts treated her with an assortment of antibiotics, but nothing could stop the bacteria. His patient was wasting away, losing 60 pounds over the course of eight months. “She was just dwindling down the drain, and she probably would have died,” Dr. Khoruts said.

Dr. Khoruts decided his patient needed a transplant. But he didn’t give her a piece of someone else’s intestines, or a stomach, or any other organ. Instead, he gave her some of her husband’s bacteria.

Dr. Khoruts mixed a small sample of her husband’s stool with saline solution and delivered it into her colon. Writing in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology last month, Dr. Khoruts and his colleagues reported that her diarrhea vanished in a day. Her Clostridium difficile infection disappeared as well and has not returned since.

The procedure — known as bacteriotherapy or fecal transplantation — had been carried out a few times over the past few decades. But Dr. Khoruts and his colleagues were able to do something previous doctors could not: they took a genetic survey of the bacteria in her intestines before and after the transplant.

Before the transplant, they found, her gut flora was in a desperate state. “The normal bacteria just didn’t exist in her,” said Dr. Khoruts. “She was colonized by all sorts of misfits.”

Two weeks after the transplant, the scientists analyzed the microbes again. Her husband’s microbes had taken over. “That community was able to function and cure her disease in a matter of days,” said Janet Jansson, a microbial ecologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a co-author of the paper. “I didn’t expect it to work. The project blew me away.” [3]

Fecal transplants can be done without a doctor’s help: someone else’s stool can be swallowed or inserted in the rectum. If taking feces orally, swallow a great deal of water afterward to help wash the bacteria through the stomach and its acid barrier.

Dogs and young children sometimes swallow feces. It is unpleasant to consider, but desperate diseases call for desperate measures. Perhaps one day, healthy stools will be available in pleasant-tasting capsules, and sold on supermarket shelves. Not yet.

 

[Finman]

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Bees do not need those pills. When bees have nosema, it spoils the gut and no bacteria get it back any more.

It is humbug. In eastern Europe they love to do those things, and some one who has money, love to pay for it.


Honey has over 100 different living microbia and bees have those in their guts too. When bees emerge, they are feeded and so they have bacterium flora in their guts.

Microbial communities in bees, pollen and honey from Slovakia.

Kacániová M, Pavlicová S, Hascík P, Kociubinski G, Kńazovická V, Sudzina M, Sudzinová J, Fikselová M.


Source

Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovakia. [email protected]


Abstract


As the honey-bee gastrointestinal tract microflora and pollen are the primary sources for the honey microbial community, the aim of this work was to study and characterize the microbial transit among them. Therefore, an exhaustive microbial analysis of honey, adult honey-bee gastrointestinal tract, and pollen from different Slovakian regions and different seasons, was conducted.

Microbial screening revealed that the primary sources of microbial community present in Slovakian honey are pollen and the honey-bees' digestive tract microflora, containing microorganisms normally present in dust, air and flowers. We found that the digestive tract of Slovakian adult honey-bees is highly populated by anaerobic, rather than aerobic bacteria, where coliforms, enterococci, staphylococci, Bacillus sp., Pseudomonas sp., microscopic fungi and yeast were found. Interestingly, statistical differences were found between the microflora of the gastrointestinal tract of summer and winter bees. Pollen revealed the presence of mesophil anaerobic and aerobic microorganisms, coliforms and microscopic fungi. Among these, the most representative genera were Alternaria, Cladosporium and Penicillium . In honey the counts of total anaerobic and total aerobic bacteria, that of coliforms, enterococci, bacilli, microscopic fungi and yeasts were monitored. Most frequently microscopic fungi belonging to genera Penicillium, Cladosporium and Alternaria were found.



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[PBee]

This research published 2012 suggests inclusion of probiotics in pollen substitutes has positive results ...

Slight changes in the epithelium as well as strong merocrine-type secretion were recorded in bees nourished pollen substitute supplemented with probiotic preparations. Differences were observed, primarily, in quantities of the developed peritrophic membranes. Their quantities were particularly high after 14 days of feeding with the pollen substitute fortified with probiotic preparations. The development of numerous peritrophic membranes could have contributed to better utilization of nutrients contained in feed and better condition of bees.

http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jas.2012.56.issue-1/v10289-012-0001-2/v10289-012-0001-2.xml

 

[Finman]

Real world and in the laboratory

The hive is outside. In April bees do not get pollen outside, but they carry really much a day drinking water from dirty which the sun warms up.

At same time bees clean their existing hive, dead rotten bees from combs and from floor.
When brooding enlarge, bees clean the cells.

Bees are all the time in connection of huge amounts of microbes.

Then May arrives and willows start to bloom. Bees get fresh pollen and patty feeding continues.
With fresh feeeder bees brooding will be 3 fold.


What I should do? Give to them some bacteria when they have allready hundreds.

To do something and believe that it works, even if I cannot see.



Laboratory bees were isolated from dirty world and from reality.
As I understood, there was no comparision to the bees which lived normally in their hive.

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[PBee]

To do something and believe that it works, even if I cannot see.
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Science versus religion.

Sums up the day that's in it nicely.

 

[sipa]

Probiotics do no good what so ever to monogastrics ie Pigs / Humans, as they are destroyed by stomach acids. Despite all the marketing guff.

However in ruminants ie sheep / cows etc where digestion is by way of fermentation then the use of probiotics can be very helpful in manipulating or restarting the rumen flora.

I have no experience in their use in bees however I would consider their use to be more problematic that usefull.

 

[Finman]

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This year EU made a decision to deny "healthy claims" which cannot be proved. Most of those claims are in cathegory "lactic acid is healthy".

Yes, you know that when your muscles have lactic acid in the lack of oxygen.

http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/fAEF/index_en.htm


http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com/2011/08/02/lactic-acid-the-lies-you-were-taught

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[mbc]

I'm not sure I like the idea of a "fecal transplant", but its almost certain that one of the reasons boosting struggling colonies with a frame of emerging brood from a boomer can seem so dis-proportionally beneficial is that you're not only supplying a boost of young, healthy bees, but also giving a shot of "probiotics" from the healthy colony.
This could also tie in with epigenetics and the expression of antibodies making the recipient colony more robust.

 

[Finman]

I'm not sure I like the idea of a "fecal transplant", but its almost certain that one of the reasons boosting struggling colonies with a frame of emerging brood from a boomer can seem so dis-proportionally beneficial is that you're not only supplying a boost of young, healthy bees, but also giving a shot of "probiotics" from the healthy colony.
This could also tie in with epigenetics and the expression of antibodies making the recipient colony more robust.

That works when nosema has spoiled a colony during winter.

Nosema sick bees cannot digest food normally. And they cannot return to healthy mode any more.
Emerged bees are able to feed larvae.

I have seen it tens of time when some hives do not eate pollen patty.
When I give new bees, consumption starts.


To move healthines from hive to hive. That I have never heard but normally sicknes move from place to place.

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[johncorne]

I listened to a program on fecal transplants on Radio 4 a while back (the joys of customers spread throughout the country!)

To those who needed them (for example, after chemo) they proved a lifesaver. I'm just glad I don't eat and drive!

Jc

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Has anyone given probiotics to their bees?

Nah - my bees don't like yoghurt

 

[mbc]

Nah - my bees don't like yoghurt

Some yanks prime queen cells with yogurt before grafting into them.

 

[BeeJayBee]

Some yanks prime queen cells with yogurt before grafting into them.

Strawberry?

 

[pargyle]

Some yanks prime queen cells with yogurt before grafting into them.

Why does that not surprise me ?

 

[RosieMc]

Dogs and young children sometimes swallow feces. It is unpleasant to consider, but desperate diseases call for desperate measures. Perhaps one day, healthy stools will be available in pleasant-tasting capsules, and sold on supermarket shelves. Not yet.

I had a weird dream last night - A pharmacist gave me a foot long capsule to take. Inside were millions of little bacteria, similar to a recent mouthwash advert. All the bacteria were jumping up and down, waving their arms about and giggling. 'Sorry I can't get it in a Kilner Jar. Take whole, and whatever you do DON'T break the capsule open'. I woke up before she told me which route it had to be taken.

Thank you for your interesting thoughts and answers. I hope that the research into the administration of probiotics to bees continue. As for bees preferring to drink 'dirty water' I agree with you Finman, they know what they are doing.

 

[Longinus Sdapeze]

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Bees do not need those pills. When bees have nosema, it spoils the gut and no bacteria get it back any more.

It is humbug. In eastern Europe they love to do those things, and some one who has money, love to pay for it.


Honey has over 100 different living microbia and bees have those in their guts too. When bees emerge, they are feeded and so they have bacterium flora in their guts.
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Beekeepers change the things as feed sugar and treat varroa!

 

[Longinus Sdapeze]

Has anyone given probiotics to their bees?

I thought I may add a capsule to patties. Research has been done, but it doesn't indicate how much and I do not want to harm them

There are products made just for bees as Microveda Care Apis, Promilieu Care and other.

 

[Finman]

Has anyone given probiotics to their bees?

I thought I may add a capsule to patties. Research has been done, but it doesn't indicate how much and I do not want to harm them

There are products made just for bees as Microveda Care Apis, Promilieu Care and other.

What then... What they do? Add nectar onto field or what?

Beekeeping is full of humbug already.

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[Finman]

There are products made just for bees as Microveda Care Apis, Promilieu Care and other.

I did not find neither
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