Researchers at the University of Molise tracked six colonies of Italian honey bees, Apis mellifera ligustica, one of the world’s most widely kept and productive subspecies, across two consecutive years in the Campania region. Three colonies stayed put at Castelpoto, a lowland site at 280 meters above sea level, while three others were transferred each summer to Piano Melaino on Mount Taburno, roughly 10.5 kilometers away but more than a kilometer higher in altitude. All six colonies began the experiment in the same apiary and were headed by sister queens from a single genetic line, a design choice that helped standardize the genetic background across the two groups, though sister queens are not genetically identical.

The two sites offered strikingly different floral landscapes. During summer, the lowland Castelpoto site was dominated by plants such as Helminthotheca, Trifolium, and Beta, while the mountain site at Taburno supported a richer array of pollen-producing species including Echium, Trifolium, Castanea, and Rubus. To keep nutrition comparable, all colonies received standardized supplementation: a winter dose of 2.5 kilograms of candied sugar paste and weekly spring feeding with 50 percent sucrose syrup for four consecutive weeks.

Sampling was intensive. Every week during each season, fifteen returning forager bees were collected at the hive entrance of each colony. The hindguts, comprising the ileum and rectum, were aseptically dissected from each bee and pooled into seasonal sampling units, one for each of the four seasons per colony per year. Over the two-year study, this produced 48 seasonal sampling units, with three independent colonies serving as biological replicates for each combination of management system, season, and year. DNA was extracted and the V1–V3 hypervariable region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene was amplified and sequenced on an Illumina MiSeq platform using paired-end chemistry.

The sequencing revealed a taxonomically rich community spanning 25 phyla, 43 classes, 91 orders, 159 families, and 242 genera. But the story was dominated by two familiar characters. Gilliamella and Snodgrassella, both core members of the honey bee gut microbiome, consistently made up the bulk of the bacterial community in every colony, every season, and every year. Their relative abundances, however, swung dramatically with the seasons. Gilliamella surged in autumn, reaching 70.1 percent in stationary colonies and 66.3 percent in migratory colonies during the autumn of 2023. Snodgrassella peaked in spring and winter, hitting 52.7 percent in migratory colonies in spring 2022 and 51.3 percent in stationary colonies in spring 2023. The two genera displayed essentially mirror-image seasonal patterns, with one rising as the other fell.

Beyond the two dominants, other genera showed their own seasonal rhythms. Bartonella spiked to 28.0 percent in migratory colonies during the summer of 2022, while Fructobacillus increased sharply in migratory colonies during autumn 2023. Frischella appeared at lower levels and fluctuated across seasons and years. Interestingly, Bifidobacterium, often considered an important gut symbiont of honey bees, was detected at very low relative abundance throughout the study. The researchers caution that this could reflect methodological biases inherent in partial 16S rRNA gene amplification rather than true ecological absence, and they urge careful interpretation of this finding.

To test whether season or management system better explained the variation in gut bacterial communities, the team applied rigorous multivariate statistics. Alpha diversity, measured by Shannon and Inverse Simpson indices calculated from harmonized genus-level relative abundance profiles, showed significant seasonal variation in both years. In 2022, season significantly affected Shannon diversity with a p-value of 0.0001 and Inverse Simpson diversity with a p-value of 0.0002, while management system showed no significant effect. The pattern repeated in 2023 with seasonal p-values of 0.0019 and 0.0014 for the two indices, and non-significant management effects. A confirmatory analysis using operational taxonomic units directly for the complete 2023 dataset independently supported these findings.

Beta diversity told the same story. Using Bray–Curtis dissimilarities and Principal Coordinates Analysis, the researchers found that the first two PCoA axes accounted for 74.75 percent of the variation in 2022 and 63.75 percent in 2023. PERMANOVA revealed that season explained 41.0 percent of the variation in bacterial community composition in 2022 and 46.5 percent in 2023, both highly significant. Management system, by contrast, explained only 3.9 percent in 2022 and 4.2 percent in 2023, neither statistically significant. PERMDISP tests confirmed that these results were not driven by differences in multivariate dispersion among groups. In short, the seasonal clock, not the relocation, was the predominant force shaping gut bacterial community structure.

Colony performance added another layer of complexity. In 2022, migratory colonies produced significantly more honey than their stationary counterparts, averaging 20.83 kilograms versus 12.20 kilograms per colony, a difference that was statistically significant. No significant differences were detected for hive-stored honey, hive-stored pollen, or colony population in that year. But in 2023, the productive advantage vanished. None of the investigated performance parameters differed significantly between the two management systems, although migratory colonies showed numerically higher values for stored pollen, colony population, and annual honey production. With only three colonies per group, the researchers emphasize that these numerical differences should be interpreted cautiously.

The disconnect between microbiota dynamics and colony productivity is perhaps the most important takeaway. Although temporal variation in gut bacterial communities occurred alongside differences in honey production between years, the study does not establish any causal or functional relationship between the two. The persistence of dominant taxa like Gilliamella and Snodgrassella across seasons indicates compositional continuity, but the researchers are careful to note that this does not by itself demonstrate functional stability, microbial resilience, or the absence of dysbiosis. Direct functional analyses of the microbiome, along with larger numbers of independent colonies and apiaries and detailed characterization of dietary and environmental factors, will be needed to clarify whether and how migratory beekeeping affects honey bee gut microbiota and colony performance in the longer term.

Subject of Research: Seasonal dynamics of gut microbiota and colony performance in honey bees under stationary versus migratory beekeeping

Article Title: Seasonal gut microbiota dynamics and colony performance under stationary and short-distance migratory beekeeping in Apis mellifera ligustica

Article References: Iorizzo, M., Albanese, G., Tedino, C., Succi, M., Di Donato, L. M., de Nigris, A., Di Criscio, D., Ganassi, S., Ambrosone, L., & De Cristofaro, A. (2026). Seasonal gut microbiota dynamics and colony performance under stationary and short-distance migratory beekeeping in Apis mellifera ligustica. Frontiers in Insect Science, 6, Article 1890935. https://doi.org/10.3389/finsc.2026.1890935

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/finsc.2026.1890935

Keywords: honey bee, gut microbiota, Apis mellifera ligustica, migratory beekeeping, 16S rRNA sequencing, Gilliamella, Snodgrassella, seasonality, colony performance, honey production, microbial ecology, beekeeping management

The numbers themselves tell a story of uncertainty. Government estimates put the national honey bee population somewhere between 0.7 and 1.5 million colonies of the introduced Western honey bee, Apis mellifera, a range so wide that planning becomes guesswork. Annual honey production figures swing from a literature-based estimate of 12,000 to 15,000 metric tons to a recent report claiming 25,000 to 30,000 tons. Export earnings are similarly blurry, cited anywhere from roughly US$15 million to US$23 million per year. The authors attribute these discrepancies to the absence of any mandatory beekeeper registration system; official statistics rest on voluntary reporting and extrapolation from small regional samples, meaning that subsidy allocations, export targets, and research investments all lack empirical grounding.

What is certain is the sector’s importance to an agriculture-dependent economy. Farming contributes roughly 19 percent of Pakistan’s GDP and employs about 45 percent of its labor force, and pollination-dependent crops—mango, citrus, apple, cotton, sunflower, canola, and forage legumes like berseem clover—form the backbone of both domestic food security and export revenue. Beekeeping itself supports an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 farm families, offering a rare low-capital enterprise suited to smallholders and landless laborers, with notable participation by rural women and youth. Migratory beekeeping, in which commercial operators truck colonies across hundreds of kilometers to chase sequential blooms, also generates seasonal employment and sustains ancillary industries in hive manufacture, honey processing, and marketing.

The migratory circuits are among the most striking features documented in the review. A typical season begins with mustard in southern Punjab and Sindh in late November, moves to citrus and mustard in central Punjab, then to vasaka and garanda in the Pothohar region and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in early spring, followed by acacia flows across Punjab and Azad Kashmir in April and May. Afterward, many beekeepers shift to wild flora in the northern hills, return to Ziziphus—source of the prized Sidr honey exported to the Middle East—and some detour through the Thal Desert before wintering. This choreography is economically rational, but it concentrates colonies from distant regions at shared nectar flows, creating what the authors describe as a plausible biosecurity risk that accelerates the dissemination of pests and pathogens and could undermine regional containment efforts.

Beneath the commercial industry lies a quieter genetic story. Pakistan is home to the native Asian honey bee, Apis cerana indica, managed for generations in log hives, earthenware pots, wall cavities, and basket hives across the northern mountains. A. cerana carries a long coevolutionary history with the parasitic mite Varroa destructor and displays effective grooming and hygienic behavior that confer relative tolerance, though its honey yields of roughly 6 to 16 kilograms per colony are far below the 15 to 40 kilograms typical of well-managed A. mellifera. The modern industry was born in the late 1970s, when packaged colonies imported from Australia were acclimatized at the National Agricultural Research Centre in Islamabad, following an ill-fated first introduction attempt in 1908. Decades of subsequent, poorly regulated imports from Italy and elsewhere have, the review suggests, eroded the genetic identity of the originally introduced subspecies, leaving behind an admixed hybrid population whose local adaptations—four decades in the making—risk being lost to continued uncontrolled gene flow.

The disease burden is formidable. Varroa destructor is recorded as the dominant ectoparasite of A. mellifera across Pakistan, peaking in winter and early spring, and functioning as a competent vector of deformed wing virus, acute bee paralysis virus, and Israeli acute paralysis virus. The brood parasite Tropilaelaps, with two reported species and a life cycle even faster than Varroa’s, caused heavy colony losses in 1992 and infestation peaks each April. The tracheal mite Acarapis woodi, introduced to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 1981 through colonies imported from Afghanistan, is described by local beekeepers as the single most destructive pest of the native A. cerana. Nosema infects roughly a quarter of the country’s colonies; chalkbrood and both American and European foulbrood are documented in major agricultural regions; and the greater wax moth peaks in the humid months of July and August. Molecular work remains scarce, but recent metagenomic sequencing has revealed an extensive viral community in Pakistani honey bees, and RT-PCR surveys have confirmed DWV, IAPV, and black queen cell virus in commercial colonies.

Treatment practices reflect this diagnostic vacuum. Beekeepers lean heavily on chemical control—fluvalinate strips against Varroa, antibiotics such as fumagillin for Nosema and tetracyclines for foulbrood, paradichlorobenzene for wax moths—often without monitoring parasite pressure first. Yet the scientific literature offers promising alternatives: Pakistani studies have shown formic acid to be the most effective tested treatment against both Varroa and Tropilaelaps, and plant-derived extracts including tobacco and clove oil show strong acaricidal activity with low toxicity to bees. The authors warn, however, that repeated and inappropriate acaricide application selects for resistance—a phenomenon already documented with amitraz in the United States—while chemical residues accumulate in hive products. Sustainable control, they argue, will require integrated pest management combining threshold-based treatment decisions, brood interruption, hygienic queen selection, and molecular diagnostics.

Climate change compounds every other pressure. Pakistan ranks among the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, and since 2022 the review reports a 15 percent decline in national honey production attributed to extreme smog and climate-induced drought. Summer temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius push colonies toward their physiological limits in semi-arid zones, while phenological shifts in the flowering of Ziziphus, acacia, and citrus disrupt the entire migratory calendar. In Balochistan—a high-potential region where apple, almond, apricot, and cherry orchards depend on insect pollination but rely on migratory colonies trucked in from Punjab and KPK—mismatches between migration schedules and bloom timing already produce suboptimal pollination. Adaptive traits for heat and drought tolerance in both bee species remain entirely uncharacterized.

The research infrastructure mirrors these weaknesses. No Pakistani university offers a dedicated degree in apicultural science, and most studies to date have been localized, descriptive surveys of mite control lacking molecular confirmation. Only a handful of genetic analyses exist, using limited markers such as COI and ND5, and no national genetic baseline exists for either species. The Honey Bee Research Institute at NARC and the historic Tarnab farm in Peshawar provide training and technical guidance, while associations like the All Pakistan Beekeepers Exporters and Honey Trader Association link producers to Gulf markets, but governance remains fragmented, with duplicated efforts and gaps in disease monitoring. Compounding the industrial frustration, the domestic cosmetics sector—valued at roughly US$2 billion—imports refined beeswax despite an estimated 400 tons of domestic production, most of which is sold crude or processed into low-margin foundation sheets. No certified organic honey facility operates in the country, and standardized quality-testing laboratories for the premium European and North American markets are absent.

The review’s prescription is ambitious but concrete: a coordinated national strategy combining genomic baselines for both native and introduced populations, routine molecular pathogen surveillance, regulated queen imports, a centralized digital registration platform the authors dub a potential “Pakistan Honeybee Portal,” and sustained collaboration among government agencies, universities, and beekeepers. With pollination services globally estimated to underpin three-quarters of leading food crops, and with economic valuations elsewhere suggesting pollinator-dependent crop values in the tens of billions of dollars, the stakes extend well beyond honey jars. For a country whose food security rides on bee-pollinated orchards and fields, the authors conclude, treating bees as data-rich, genetically managed livestock rather than an informal afterthought may determine whether Pakistan’s apicultural promise is finally realized.

Subject of Research: The status, challenges, and research needs of beekeeping in Pakistan, including honey bee genetics, disease dynamics, and pollination services

Article Title: Status of beekeeping in Pakistan: apicultural significance, industry challenges, and opportunities for integrated genetic and disease research programs

Article References: Status of beekeeping in Pakistan: apicultural significance, industry challenges, and opportunities for integrated genetic and disease research programs. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.3389/frbee.2026.1926378

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/frbee.2026.1926378

Keywords: beekeeping, Pakistan, Apis mellifera, Apis cerana, Varroa destructor, Tropilaelaps, pollination services, honey production, population genetics, disease surveillance, climate change, migratory beekeeping