Knowledge of the micronutrient requirements of honey bees and other bee species remains
limited. Honey bees prefer salty water sources, especially those containing sodium.
Bee microbes could potentially synthesize essential dietary vitamins not provided by pollen. In
addition, sterols are important for most organisms and are essential dietary components for insects.
The sterol requirements of bees are mostly unknown. Early studies done by the U.S. Department
of Agriculture labs established that honey bees require diets containing the pollen-derived sterol,
24-methylene cholesterol. Honey bees also need cholesterol in diet, as it is a hormone precursor

Because of the complexity of the honey bee colony as a superorganism, nutritional effects measured
at the individual bee level, or on bees in cages, do not necessarily correspond to those at the
colony level. For example, hemolymph protein concentration of caged nurse bees can be used as
one indicator of the efficiency of digestion of protein. However, feeding colonies for several
months on either of two commercial artificial diets or pollen did not affect hemolymph protein
concentrations of nurse bees in the colonies, nor the colony population size, though the health
of colonies fed artificial diets was compromised and they suffered greater queen losses and more
Nosema infection

Source:
Wright, Geraldine A., Susan W. Nicolson, and Sharoni Shafir. "Nutritional Physiology and Ecology of Honey Bees." Annual review of entomology (2017).

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html