Summary

Severe declines in honey bee populations have made it imperative to
understand key factors impacting honey bee health. Of major concern is
nutrition, as malnutrition in honey bees is associated with immune system
impairment and increased pesticide susceptibility. Beekeepers often feed
high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) or sucrose after harvesting honey or during
periods of nectar dearth. We report that, relative to honey, chronic feeding
of either of these two alternative carbohydrate sources elicited hundreds of
differences in gene expression in the fat body, a peripheral
nutrient-sensing tissue analogous to vertebrate liver and adipose tissues.
These expression differences included genes involved in protein metabolism
and oxidation-reduction, including some involved in tyrosine and
phenylalanine metabolism. Differences between HFCS and sucrose diets were
much more subtle and included a few genes involved in carbohydrate and lipid
metabolism. Our results suggest that bees receive nutritional components
from honey that are not provided by alternative food sources widely used in
apiculture.

Marsha M. Wheeler	& Gene E. Robinson	
Scientific Reports  4, Article number: 5726 doi:10.1038/srep05726 Received
02 May 2014  Accepted  26 June 2014  Published  17 July 2014.


More here:

http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140717/srep05726/full/srep05726.html

Kind regards,

Ghislain De Roeck,
Belgium.

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