We have had some exchange on the following topic:
 
>> But you also wrote that "bees consume only liquids". Now I actually did not
>> find that very contradictory, because brood is probably more liquidy than
>> pollen.  I can imagine the bees breaking up the outer cuticle of the larva
>> and sucking up the juice much as a spider.  (Do they haul out the larval
>> shell afterwards?  I can imagine that it might be less work than breaking
>> it up into drinkable size pieces.)
 
   Andy is basically correct, as I understand matters.  When teaching my
entomology class through the past several decades, I stressed that a great
many insect species secrete a salivary juice onto the food.  It thereby
becomes pre-digested before intake into the gut as a liquid.
 
                                                Adrian
 
Adrian M. Wenner                         (805) 893-2838 (UCSB office)
Ecol., Evol., & Marine Biology           (805) 893-8062  (UCSB FAX)
Univ. of Calif., Santa Barbara           (805) 963-8508 (home office & FAX)
Santa Barbara, CA  93106
 
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*  "Discovery is to see what everyone else has seen,                  *
*         but to think what no one else has thought."                 *
*                                       ---    Albert Szent-Gyorgyi   *
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