OK, the real title of the paper is "Ecologically Appropriate Xenobiotics Induce Cytochrome P450s in Apis mellifera" but the headlines are liable to be different. 

Reed Johnson and colleagues have put this out on PLoS (Public Library of Science). They point clearly to the presence in honey of substances which enhance bees' ability to detoxify substances they are exposed to in the environment. 

Bear in mind, these immune system defenses evolved over millions of years and are in response to various naturally occurring toxins. Modern pesticides may not be properly detoxified by any innate system.

> 
> High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and sucrose syrup are commonly used in commercial apiculture [67]. Neither supplemental carbohydrate source contains the suite of plant secondary compounds that are present in nectar and honey and that may be important in P450 regulation. Susceptibility of adult workers to tau-fluvalinate and imidacloprid was compared on diets of honey, sucrose, and HFCS.
> 
> Non-honey diets significantly decreased the ability of honey bees to tolerate the natural toxin aflatoxin B1 yet had no measurable effect on toxicity of the synthetic toxins tau-fluvalinate and imidacloprid.
> 
> The presence of substances in honey that induce or upregulate detoxificative P450s in honey bees raises the possibility that the longstanding practice of feeding bees sucrose or HFCS [73] may have unintended adverse impacts. beyond those already documented.
> 
> Understanding precisely how honey bees process toxins, either individually or in combination, is a pressing necessity for maintaining the vitality of the U.S. apicultural enterprise. 


Citation: Johnson RM, Mao W, Pollock HS, Niu G, Schuler MA, et al. (2012) Ecologically Appropriate Xenobiotics Induce Cytochrome P450s in Apis mellifera. PLoS
ONE 7(2): e31051. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031051
Editor: Frederic Marion-Poll, AgroParisTech, France
Received June 28, 2011; Accepted December 31, 2011; Published February 3, 2012
Copyright:  2012 Johnson 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.
Funding: United States Department of Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (USDA-AFRI). The funders had no role in study design, data collection
and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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