Microbiology Assistant Professor Maude David and PhD student Grace Deitzler are collaborating with Associate Professor Dr. Ramesh Sagili and postdoctoral fellow Dr. Priyadarshini Chakrabarti-Basu (College of Agricultural Sciences) to test the effects of commercially available probiotics for honeybees. These products have received a lot of attention in the beekeeping community in recent years, but substantial scientific evidence for their efficacy is still lacking. This collaboration aims to investigate the impact that the probiotics have on the honey bee gut microbiome and the bees' ability to fight off infection by the parasite Nosema ceranae. Deitzler's proposal for this study has earned her a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship award to continue this research.