Characterization of microbial communities in commercial bee pollen used for mass rearing of Bombus impatiens

Abstract

Bee pollen is a favorable microhabitat for many microorganisms and its dissemination via commercialization must be of important consideration. Here the data presented describe the characterization of bacteria and fungi community structure in seven commercial bee pollen samples from Europe, Mexico, and Chile, obtained from a commercial supplier, which were determined by amplicon-rRNA and ITS analysis. The results show that within the domain Bacteria, the most abundant phyla in all samples were Proteobacteria (24%–91%) and Firmicute (2%–74%), for fungi taxonomy classification was Ascomycota with a relative abundance of 30%–99%, followed by Basidiomycota with a relative abundance of 1%–39%. These results extend our knowledge of the microbial diversity associated with commercial bee pollen used for mass rearing of Bombus impatiens and may be useful in developing procedures for microbial control during its importation.