The trisaccharide melezitose impacts honey bees and their intestinal microbiota.

ABSTRACT: In general, honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) feed on honey produced from collected nectar. In the absence of nectar, during certain times of the year or in monocultural landscapes, honey bees forage on honeydew. Honeydew is excreted by different herbivores of the order Hemiptera that consume phloem sap of plant species. In comparison to nectar, honeydew is composed of a higher variety of sugars and additional sugars with higher molecular weight, like the trisaccharide melezitose that can be a major constituent of honeydew. However, melezitose-containing honey is known to cause malnutrition in overwintering honey bees. Following the hypothesis that melezitose may be the cause for the so called 'honeydew flow disease', three independent feeding experiments with caged bees were conducted in con

SUBMITTER: Seeburger VC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7147780 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature