Antibiotic resistance is a growing threat to human and animal health, and this problem is accelerated by the transfer of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) between individual bacteria. ARGs tend to accumulate in the gut microbes of animals, and they reflect the resistome, or collection of ARGs, of the environment. Thus, one way to monitor the resistome of an environment could be sampling the gut microbiomes of animals. To that end, researchers examined the gut resistomes of two domesticated honeybee species, Apis cerana and Apis mellifera. The resistome corresponded most strongly with the honeybee host species, rather than geographic region. The more heavily managed species, A. mellifera, carried the most ARGs and had the heaviest load of transferrable ARGs. However, transferrable ARGs were common in the microbiomes from both honeybee species. The researchers also found evidence that plasmids were key to the persistence and dissemination of ARGs in honeybee microbiomes, as there were instances of plasmids being integrated into bacterial genomes and signs of plasmid evolution. Overall, this study demonstrated that honeybee resistomes varied in structure and highlighted the importance of plasmids to the spread of ARGs within honeybee microbiomes.