A look into the cell: Honey storage in honey bees, Apis mellifera

© 2016 Eyer et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Honey bees, Apis species, obtain carbohydrate...

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Main Authors: Michael Eyer, Peter Neumann, Vincent Dietemann
Format: Journal
Published: 2018
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http://cmuir.cmu.ac.th/jspui/handle/6653943832/54991
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Institution: Chiang Mai University
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spelling th-cmuir.6653943832-549912018-09-05T02:52:40Z A look into the cell: Honey storage in honey bees, Apis mellifera Michael Eyer Peter Neumann Vincent Dietemann Agricultural and Biological Sciences Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology © 2016 Eyer et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Honey bees, Apis species, obtain carbohydrates from nectar and honeydew. These resources are ripened into honey in wax cells that are capped for long-term storage. These stores are used to overcome dearth periods when foraging is not possible. Despite the economic and ecological importance of honey, little is known about the processes of its production by workers. Here, we monitored the usage of storage cells and the ripening process of honey in free-flying A. mellifera colonies. We provided the colonies with solutions of different sugar concentrations to reflect the natural influx of nectar with varying quality. Since the amount of carbohydrates in a solution affects its density, we used computer tomography to measure the sugar concentration of cell content over time. The data show the occurrence of two cohorts of cells with different provisioning and ripening dynamics. The relocation of the content of many cells before final storage was part of the ripening process, because sugar concentration of the content removed was lower than that of content deposited. The results confirm the mixing of solutions of different concentrations in cells and show that honey is an inhomogeneous matrix. The last stage of ripening occurred when cell capping had already started, indicating a race against water absorption. The storage and ripening processes as well as resource use were context dependent because their dynamics changed with sugar concentration of the food. Our results support hypotheses regarding honey production proposed in earlier studies and provide new insights into the mechanisms involved. 2018-09-05T02:50:43Z 2018-09-05T02:50:43Z 2016-08-01 Journal 19326203 2-s2.0-84990046489 10.1371/journal.pone.0161059 https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=84990046489&origin=inward http://cmuir.cmu.ac.th/jspui/handle/6653943832/54991
institution Chiang Mai University
building Chiang Mai University Library
country Thailand
collection CMU Intellectual Repository
topic Agricultural and Biological Sciences
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
spellingShingle Agricultural and Biological Sciences
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Michael Eyer
Peter Neumann
Vincent Dietemann
A look into the cell: Honey storage in honey bees, Apis mellifera
description © 2016 Eyer et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Honey bees, Apis species, obtain carbohydrates from nectar and honeydew. These resources are ripened into honey in wax cells that are capped for long-term storage. These stores are used to overcome dearth periods when foraging is not possible. Despite the economic and ecological importance of honey, little is known about the processes of its production by workers. Here, we monitored the usage of storage cells and the ripening process of honey in free-flying A. mellifera colonies. We provided the colonies with solutions of different sugar concentrations to reflect the natural influx of nectar with varying quality. Since the amount of carbohydrates in a solution affects its density, we used computer tomography to measure the sugar concentration of cell content over time. The data show the occurrence of two cohorts of cells with different provisioning and ripening dynamics. The relocation of the content of many cells before final storage was part of the ripening process, because sugar concentration of the content removed was lower than that of content deposited. The results confirm the mixing of solutions of different concentrations in cells and show that honey is an inhomogeneous matrix. The last stage of ripening occurred when cell capping had already started, indicating a race against water absorption. The storage and ripening processes as well as resource use were context dependent because their dynamics changed with sugar concentration of the food. Our results support hypotheses regarding honey production proposed in earlier studies and provide new insights into the mechanisms involved.
format Journal
author Michael Eyer
Peter Neumann
Vincent Dietemann
author_facet Michael Eyer
Peter Neumann
Vincent Dietemann
author_sort Michael Eyer
title A look into the cell: Honey storage in honey bees, Apis mellifera
title_short A look into the cell: Honey storage in honey bees, Apis mellifera
title_full A look into the cell: Honey storage in honey bees, Apis mellifera
title_fullStr A look into the cell: Honey storage in honey bees, Apis mellifera
title_full_unstemmed A look into the cell: Honey storage in honey bees, Apis mellifera
title_sort look into the cell: honey storage in honey bees, apis mellifera
publishDate 2018
url https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=84990046489&origin=inward
http://cmuir.cmu.ac.th/jspui/handle/6653943832/54991
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