Brendan Daisley: Saving the honey bees with probiotics!

TWO NOBODYS

Can improving the gut health of honey bees improve bee populations and aid in their survival? What about saving the honey bees with probiotics?

Discover how Brendan Daisley is on a mission to save the honey bees by using probiotics! Learn how he aims to address microbial imbalances in bees to promote ecosystem health and sustainable agriculture. Join Brendan and Rupesh on this Two Nobodys Podcast episode as they discuss this critical research!

Keywords: probiotics honey bees, saving the honey bees, probiotics, bee gut health, Brendan Daisley

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Dr. Brendan Daisley is a distinguished Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Guelph and serves as the current SFA Vice President of the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP). He earned his PhD in Microbiology & Immunology from Western University in 2021, where he was honored with several prestigious awards, including the Armand Frappier Outstanding Student Award from The Canadian Society of Microbiologists. Brendan has a broad range of experience in environmental application of probiotics to honey bees and, notably, he was the first to introduce the theory of ‘missing microbes’ within the field of honey bee microbiome research. During his doctoral work, he coordinated several large field trials across North America (including Ontario and California) showing that supplementation of probiotic lactobacilli strains to honey bees could improve colony-level health outcomes. During his postdoc, he has since developed a microbiome database tool (BEExact) for improved detection of uncultivated ‘microbial dark matter’ using Illumina next-generation sequencing technologies, established a bioreactor model of the honey bee gut microbiome (the RoBEEgut), and co-founded the Canadian Bee Gut Project (https://beegutproject.uoguelph.ca) – a nationwide crowdsourcing initiative that aims to deeply characterize thousands of bee microbiome samples to increase our knowledge on the multifactorial drivers of honey bee mortality. Ultimately, his research goals are to improve beekeeping practices through the management of both beneficial and pathogenic microorganisms associated with honey bees. Ultimately, Brendan’s research is dedicated to improving the health and survival of bee populations as well as development of microbial management techniques in agroecosystems. His contributions are paving the way for innovative solutions in the field of microbiome research and environmental sustainability.