Gut microbiota of worker honey bees

Adult honey bees harbor a specialized gut microbiota of relatively low complexity. While seasonal differences in community composition have been reported, little is known about the gut microbiota of winter bees, which live much longer than bees during the foraging season, and which are critical for colony survival. Here, we characterized the community composition of different bee types (i.e. foragers, nursers, and winter bees) in 14 colonies during summer and winter, using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. Our findings are publicly available in the article titled:"Gut microbiota structure differs between honey bees in winter and summer"