> > > What a fantastic paper! It certainly broadened my understanding of what > seems to be happening in the bees gut. I'm in agreement, Peter! So much so that I proposed a collaboration with another microbiologist. I've been collecting samples of bee guts (sterile technique) this week from two different groups of colonies--the two most productive, and two least productive in each yard. We wish to see whether there is a correlation with certain species or strains of gut microbiota and productivity of colonies. If so, then someone may be able to develop an inoculum to feed to queens or packages to prime their guts with an optimum biota, which may have been compromised over the years from our use of antibiotics, and bottlenecking due to centralized breeding programs. This research is currently unfunded, and will likely be funded partly or wholly from the donations to my website. Feel free to donate--the cost of the project is about $10,000. Randy Oliver Grass Valley, CA www.ScientificBeekeeping.com *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm