>Juanse Barros <[log in to unmask]> wrote: http://rspb.
royalsocietypublishing.org/content/285/1875/20172849
>
> Nursing protects honeybee larvae from secondary metabolites of pollen


Nice find Juanse!

Bill Hesbach and I were discussing larval consumption of pollen only
yesterday.  I had brought up the study by Simpson (1955 The Significance of
the Presence of Pollen in the Food of Worker Larvae of the Honey-bee), in
which he found that, despite the common belief that late-stage larvae are
fed a mixture of jelly and pollen, that the amount of pollen was
insignificant, and likely due solely to contamination.

My own limited personal dissection of 5th-instar larvae confirms the lack
of pollen in their guts (I beg the rest of you with 400x 'scopes to
confirm).

The study cited by Juanse also helps to explain why pesticide residues in
pollen tend not to be present in the jelly produced by the nurses.
-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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