Joe, is that bacterium on blue cheese or what? I'm always hesitant to eat that cheese although I sometimes get a blue cheese dressing on iceberg lettuce wedge with bacon bits.
Maybe you shouldn't answer my question. I have a feeling I'm not going to like the answer. 
Not bacteria, but mold, specifically Penicillium Roqueforti, which is the mold that gives blue cheese its flavor. It is perfectly safe to eat, albeit a little disconcerting the first time you see a wheel of blue before it is scraped.
Essentially all cheese is made with some type of bacteria, aka the cultures, that infects the milk, starts turning lactose into lactic acid and congeals the milk to a degree plus releasing flavor compounds. Left alone, this would turn into a yogurt like substance, but with cheese, we add rennet that causes the cheese to form one giant semi-solid curd. At this point the curd is cut down into smaller pieces, ranging from a 1/8 inch to a full inch cube and agitated for a period of time, which releases the whey. The initial size that the curd is cut down into and then by how much it is agitated dictates how hard or soft the cheese is. Larger curds produce a softer cheese.
With blue cheese, we also add Penicillium Roqueforti in addition to the culture. However, this mold needs oxygen to grow, so we cut large curds, let them dry out a bit before putting them in the cheese mold and let them just knit together under their own weight only. This allows for many fishers between the curds to remain and promotes air flow. After a couple weeks, the mold starts to grow in blue/green splotches and at this point we needle the wheel all over to increase air flow inside. (Notice the very thick veins; that is from the needling.) After about two to three months, the Penicillium Roqueforti mold completely covers the cheese, which is what you see in the first pick. At this point it has gotten so thick, no air flow is getting inside and it starts to yellow, so it is scraped off. I then wrapped it with parchment and foil, which will slow the growth but continue to increase the flavor.
With cheese making, mold is kind of expected and even encouraged. Even with cheeses that don't use mold, mold will eventually grow on the outside. You wipe it off with salt water until the a hard natural rind forms or you can wax or bandage it.
I bandage my wheels of Gouda, which is a process of covering the wheel with hot lard and then tightly wrapping the cheese in a few layers of lard soaked cheese cloth. The lard keeps mold from growing on the cheese directly, but mold does grow on the outer layer of cloth. This however is not enough for the mold to survive on for too long, and eventually the mold dies, hardens and creates a protective layer. Plus is allows for more air flow, increasing overall flavor development then just using wax.
Mold is a way of life.
PS, below is a pic of a few wheels in my "cave." The two on the left are bandaged Gouda I made a few months ago. As you can see, there is quite a lot of mold on the outside, but is only growing on the cheese cloth. Even if it did make it to the cheese, it is mainly Penicillium Roqueforti, which needs oxygen to live and Gouda is too dense for mold to get past the surface. The wheel 2nd from right is Gouda I made last week and bandaged a few days ago. The wheel on the right is Gruyere, which has a natural rind forming. Essentially I allow the exterior to dry out and harden, wiping it down with salt water and eventually it gets too dry for mold to grow on it. As you can see, it has strunk a good deal compared to the Gouda, another advantage of bandaging the wheel.
