Regarding propolis, I would suggest that whatever healthful properties accrete from it are incidental and honey bees are unaware of them. On the other hand, there seems to be a significant
> constraint that honey bees have to face, a barrier that probably limits the number of plant species providing propolis resin. Not all plant exudates are available for collection by honey bees. Latex, some resins and gums often are too sticky to be collected by bees. In addition, latex and some resins solidify in contact with air and turn out a material too hard to be manipulated by honeybees. Exudates that bees normally collect, for example from apical buds of poplars [2] or from flower stigmata of Clusia [6], are nearly solid films which are amenable to be scraped from the plant surface and be attached to the hind honeybee legs. Vegetative plant organs, such as barks and leaves, often have relatively abundant load of antimicrobial secondary metabolites. However, most of these materials are too hard to be cut with the mouth mandibles of honeybees. Although honey bees also behave as chewing insects when they collect plant resins, their mouth mandibles are delicate, as compared with mouth parts of typically chewing insects, such as leafcutter ants and grasshoppers
Salatino, A., & Salatino, M. L. F. (2017). Why do honeybees exploit so few plant species as propolis sources?. MOJ Food Processing & Technology, 4(5), 3.
ΒΆ
In other words, they collect material based on its malleability and likely little else
PLB
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