16s rRNA of Honey Bee Queen Microbiota: Mouthparts, Midgut, Ileum & Rectum

Here we explore early honey bee queen gut microbial colonization and succession. We sample freshly mated queens from two US based breeders at receipt (approximately 24 days old) and after being established at the head of their own colony or stored in a queen bank.We perform deep sequencing of four alimentary tract niches that differ in many ways including physiological function, pH, and oxygen exposure. To accompany each amplicon library, we determine the absolute numbers of bacteria with qPCR