Animal Source Foods
Chuong Pham-Huy, Bruno Pham Huy in Food and Lifestyle in Health and Disease, 2022
Honeybees produce honey by collecting sugar-rich nectar from flowers, which is a clear liquid consisting of nearly 80% water and complex sugars. In the hive, the bees use their ‘honey stomachs’ to ingest and regurgitate the nectar many times until it is partially digested. They continue this process until the product reaches the desired quality (129). After the final regurgitation, the honeycomb is left unsealed. Raw honey is then stored in honeycomb cells to dry. Honeybees use their wings to fan the honey comb, to evaporate about 80% of the water from the raw honey, thereby preventing fermentation of the honey (129, 131). Once dried, the cells of the honeycomb are sealed with wax to preserve the honey. Ripe honey, as removed from the hive by a beekeeper, has a long shelf life and will not ferment if properly sealed (129).
Deception in Nonhumans
Harold V. Hall, Joseph G. Poirier in Detecting Malingering and Deception, 2020
Apropos of our main theme regarding deceptive behavior, researchers Nepi, Grasso, and Mancuso (2018) recently reviewed a complicated process suggesting deceptive behavior evidenced by species of plants. The authors acknowledged that their work and the work of countless other botanical researchers extend back to aspects of the original inspiration of Darwin in the 1850s. The authors described that many plants produce floral nectar (FN), which contains usual pollination properties along with scents and nutrients that attract insect/animal pollinators. Plants also produce extra floral nectar, which powerfully attracts insects, but does not have regeneration (pollination) properties. This delicate process is ultimately directed at the preservation of the plant stamina because the production of FN, which contains the usual regeneration elements, is costlier to plant integrity. Extra floral nectar, on the other hand, accomplishes the same purpose of attracting pollinators, but without the integrity-loss to the plant as occurs with FN.
Functions of Essential Oils and Natural Volatiles in Plant-Insect Interactions
K. Hüsnü Can Başer, Gerhard Buchbauer in Handbook of Essential Oils, 2020
A serious problem for social bees with generalized foraging patterns (Bombus terrestris in Europe, B. impatiens in North America) is the spread of the trypanosome Crithidia bombi, an obligate gut parasite of bumble bees that is transmitted among bees through infected feces (Schmid-Hempel and Durrer, 1991). In addition to direct impacts on bee survival and reproduction, infection by C. bombi also reduces the ability of bees to learn different floral traits in association with sugar rewards (Gegear et al., 2006). One promising development is that thymol was found to inhibit the growth of C. bombi when applied in dosages comparable to their natural occurrence in T. vulgaris floral nectar (5–8 ppm), presumably by disrupting the parasite's cell and mitochondrial membranes (Palmer-Young et al., 2016). Subsequent research indicates that the prophylactic effects of nectar thymol on C. bombi are synergized when eugenol, another widespread component of floral EOs and nectars, is present, suggesting that diversified nectar meals may help bees to mitigate trypanosome infection (Palmer-Young et al., 2017b). However, strains of thymol-resistant C. bombi may evolve quickly, even when multiple EO components are used in biocontrol (Palmer-Young et al., 2017a). We are just beginning to understand how non-sugar nectar components, including but not limited to volatile EO constituents, impact the health of bees and other flower-visiting animals (Richardson et al., 2015).
Time-restricted foraging under natural light/dark condition shifts the molecular clock in the honey bee, Apis mellifera
Published in Chronobiology International, 2018
Rikesh Jain, Axel Brockmann
We were interested in the phenomenon of time-restricted foraging in honey bees. Honey bee foragers are capable of learning the daily time of nectar availability in flowers and synchronize their foraging activity rhythm accordingly by visiting a food source only when it is most profitable (Kleber 1935; Moore 2001). Furthermore, there is evidence that this time-memory is controlled by endogenous clocks and does not rely on any rhythmic environmental cues (Beier 1968; Beier and Lindauer 1970; Beling 1929; Bennett and Renner 1963; Moore et al. 1989; Wahl 1932). Frisch and Aschoff (1987) showed that restricted feeder presentation under constant light and temperature conditions in an indoor flight room entrained the daily foraging rhythm of honey bee colonies. Different to many other behavioral paradigms, artificial time-restricted feeder presentation or feeder training corresponds to naturally occurring behavior in honey bees. Many flowering plants show diurnal rhythmicity (Van Doorn and Van Meeteren 2003, Fenske and Imaizumi 2016) and honey bee foragers show flower constancy and highly likely shift work, where different groups go out to forage at different times of the day (Kraus et al. 2011). Possible evidence for shift work or temporal division of labor was also reported for the ant species Camponotus compressus (Sharma et al. 2004).
Sub-lethal effects of thiamethoxam on Apis mellifera Linnaeus
Published in Toxin Reviews, 2022
Amit Choudhary, Bharathi Mohindru, Ashok Kumar Karedla, Jaspal Singh, Pardeep K. Chhuneja
Foraging bees use visual and olfactory cues for locating flowers providing nectar and pollen. Nectar is mainly composed of sucrose, hence bees must have an excellent capacity to sense sucrose concentrations. Any reduction in sensitivity will increase energy expenditure per unit nectar collection ultimately affecting the colony survival. Sucrose responsiveness was found affected when the bees were provided thiamethoxam ad libitum at 1 ng bee−1. A significant reduction in associative learning in bees after ingestion of thiamethoxam at 3 ng bee−1 has been reported by Decourtye and Devillers (2010) because only 38% of bees could find a food source in a complex maze trial in comparison to 61% in the untreated control.
Optimisation of umbu juice spray drying, and physicochemical, microbiological and sensory evaluation of atomised powder
Published in Journal of Microencapsulation, 2020
Michelle M. B. de Souza, Andrelina M. P. Santos, Attilio Converti, Maria Inês S. Maciel
The good potential of 10-, 15- and 20-DE maltodextrins as coating agents to atomise fruit pulp has been mentioned. Our research group already tested 15-DE maltodextrin to atomise umbu pulp, but it led to products with low flavour retention, hygroscopicity and solubility (Silva et al.2014). Therefore, in this study we (a) employed 10-DE maltodextrin as a coating agent, (b) selected optimal spray drying conditions, (c) characterised physicochemically and microbiologically the best powder product and (d) evaluated the nectar reconstituted from it in terms of sensory properties.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Coevolution
- Cytoplasm
- Epidermis
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- Ovary
- Parasitoid Wasp
- Tissue
- Sugar
- Mosquito
- Honey