Like humans, honeybees have gut microbes. However, recent studies found the gut microbiota of a honeybee has a highly distinctive feature: whereas the human gut microbiota is said to consist of 100 trillion microbes across 1,000 species, 95% of the gut microbiota in honeybees is composed of no more than 8-10 genera of bacteria. This small number of gut bacterial species is beneficial to honeybees: for example, some of the bacteria assist in breaking down several pollen components that honeybees themselves can’t easily digest. Several studies also suggest that gut bacteria also play a role in the behavior of honeybees.