>What about cannibalism? Do the books have it right?
I believe so.

> What about that funny little apparatus between the stomach and the gut
> called the proventriculus  .  I thought the purpose of that was to prevent
> pollen from entering
> the gut

Function is to remove pollen and pathogen spores from the nectar contents,
so that they are not stored in the honey.


> > Is bee bread made simply by the addition of honey to pollen pellets, or
> is the
> pollen (or a portion of the pollen) acted upon by some enzymes in the
> stomach?
>
Beebread is created by microbial action on the pollen/nectar/saliva pack in
the cells.

Randy Oliver

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