A study on the impact of antibiotics on honey bee gut bacteria revealed the importance of preserving healthy gut bacteria not only in bees, but in humans as well. Antibiotics, initially given to bees to combat illness, were found to harm important healthy gut bacteria, leading to early bee death and increased vulnerability to harmful bacteria. The research emphasizes the need to explore alternative, natural methods for supporting healthy gut bacteria. This study sheds light on the importance of maintaining a balance of bacteria in our bodies and the potential implications for human health.
We can do a lot of things to try to stay healthy. We might exercise, eat foods that are good for us, get enough sleep, and avoid things that are toxic to our bodies. But what we don’t always realize is that those habits don’t just help us stay healthy. They also help keep important bacteria in our bodies healthy.
That’s right, bacteria in our bodies. You might say yuck! But some bacteria are our bodies’ unsung heroes. Without them, we would not be able to live. They help protect us from illness and help us digest certain foods. Imbalances in some of our bacteria can increase our risks of health problems.
Now, our relationship with bacteria isn’t unusual. Other animals also need bacteria to stay healthy. One of these animals has researchers abuzz. And that’s because it involves honeybees that are also very important to humans.
Right - those buzzing bees are responsible for pollinating most of our crops that we eat. Without them, we would be unsure how to make enough food. But honeybees have been getting sick and their populations have been decreasing. One of the tools we’ve used to try to help bees fight off illness is to give them antibiotics - like you might take if you were really sick with a bacterial infection. But what if giving antibiotics to bees does more harm than good?
Ask A Biologist, a program at Arizona State University, looked into some research by scientists studying bacteria that lives inside the gut of honeybees. The researchers studied bees that were given antibiotics versus those that were not and the bacteria that survived in the guts of both groups. They also followed those bees to see which ones lived longer. And they tested whether one group was better at fighting off bad bacteria than the other. The results were surprising. It turned out that not only did antibiotics kill some of the important bacteria in bee bellies, but removing those bacteria may have caused early death of some of the bees as well. The antibiotics also made the bees more likely to be infected with really bad bacteria that can kill them.
So what’s the trick to helping bee colonies? Well, it certainly isn’t to treat them with antibiotics. And without the research by scientists we wouldn’t know that using antibiotics is making colony die-off worse. This is part of the scientific process that includes testing, and sometimes rethinking the way to handle a problem. The next step is to look for other ways, maybe using more natural methods to support good bee belly bacteria (say that fast three times). And you know what? It might help us learn a thing or two about keeping our own belly bacteria healthy.