Do Shifts in Honeybee Crop Microbiota Enable Ethanol Accumulation? A Comparative Analysis of Caged and Foraging Bees.

ABSTRACT: Honeybees encounter low environmental doses of ethanol, primarily through fermenting nectar, which can have both beneficial and detrimental effects on their functioning. Yet, ethanol traces can also be detected in the crop of caged bees with no access to environmental food sources. This raises the possibility that endogenous ethanol accumulation could occur under restricted conditions, with microbial contributions as a potential mechanism. The crop microbiota, although less diverse than that in other gut segments, plays important roles in food fermentation and pathogen defense. We hypothesized that captivity-induced shifts in crop microbiota may facilitate fermentation, resulting in measurable ethanol. To test this, we compared the crop contents of naturally foraging hive bees and caged be

SUBMITTER: Antol W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12680868 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature