Hi Jim and All

>> I don't see it as difficult at all to construct a sterile environment

I do.  Whole bees will be bursting with microbes, and in the gut of one queen you'll probably find some individuals of all the microorganisms that would be found in bee bread and pollen stores.

I can't see that a cocktail of antibiotics could be designed that kills all microorganisms in the bee gut (and on the bee), leaving the bee alive and axenic (a better word than sterile which has other connotations).

Taking plant tissue into axenic culture, something which I've done more times than I care to remember, is far from easy and brain surgery isn't an appropriate comparison as surgery does not require axenic conditions, just fairly clean ones.  To clean the surface of plant tissue the usual approach is a quick rinse in ethanol, 10-15 mins submerged in hypochlorite solution, then half a dozen rinses in water previously sterilised in an autoclave.  Even then, plant tissue from less than clean environments or tissue that has bacteria or yeasts already living internally can be close to impossible to get into axenic culture.

I'd have thought that the only way to get axenic bees would be to surface sterilise eggs as noted above, and to nurture them and feed them by hand using properly sterilised bee food in an artificial environment where no microorganisms can re-infect the bee.  It should be possible but it would be far from easy.

all the best

Gavin 

****************************************************
* General Information About BEE-L is available at: *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm   *
****************************************************