Honeybees harbor antibiotic-resistance genes

Bacteria in the guts of honeybees are highly resistant to the antibiotic tetracycline, probably as a result of decades of preventive antibiotic use in domesticated hives. Researchers from Yale University identified eight different tetracycline resistance genes among U.S. honeybees that were exposed to the antibiotic, but the genes were largely absent in bees from countries where such antibiotic use is banned. The study appears on October 30 in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

Read the whole article on Physorg

More from Physorg