Scientists have uncovered a whole new genus of actinomycete bacteria from a beehive of Apis mellifera (common name, honeybee) in Belgium. The team took samples from a variety of locations such as pollen, wax, propolis, honey and the surface of a bee, and isolated five strains of a novel bacterium, which analysis revealed to have a distinct lineage of the Micromonosporaceae family. The researchers have named the new genus and species Melissospora conviva; the name derives from the ancient Greek word for bee, melissa, which is also where the human name comes from! They also uncovered something interesting when they tried (and failed) to grow these five strains individually- each was unable to survive in the sterile culture alone but grew successfully when co-cultivated. That is because they are auxotroph, where species have lost the genes for all of the key metabolic pathways needed for survival and rely on others for metabolites, in a process known as cross-feeding. Talk about a tight-knit family! The scientists highlight that utilising techniques like co-cultivation will be key to addressing the yet-unstudied ‘microbial dark matter’ because of such complexities in culturing wild microbes in the lab.