Sugar perception in honeybees.

Honeybees () need their fine sense of taste to evaluate nectar and pollen sources. Gustatory receptors (Grs) translate taste signals into electrical responses. experiments have demonstrated collective responses of the whole Gr-set.

In Vitro Rearing Changes Social Task Performance and Physiology in Honeybees.

In vitro rearing of honeybee larvae is an established method that enables exact control and monitoring of developmental factors and allows controlled application of pesticides or pathogens. However, only a few studies have investigated how the rearing method itself affects the behavior of the resulting adult honeybees. We raised honeybees in vitro according to a standardized protocol: marking the emerging honeybees individually and inserting them into established colonies.

CRISPR/Cas 9-Mediated Mutations as a New Tool for Studying Taste in Honeybees.

Honeybees rely on nectar as their main source of carbohydrates. Sucrose, glucose, and fructose are the main components of plant nectars. Intriguingly, honeybees express only 3 putative sugar receptors (AmGr1, AmGr2, and AmGr3), which is in stark contrast to many other insects and vertebrates.

Responses to sugar and sugar receptor gene expression in different social roles of the honeybee (Apis mellifera).

Honeybees (Apis mellifera) are well-known for their sophisticated division of labor with each bee performing sequentially a series of social tasks. Colony organization is largely based on age-dependent division of labor. While bees perform several tasks inside the hive such as caring for brood ("nursing"), cleaning or sealing brood cells or producing honey, older bees leave to colony to collect pollen (proteins) and nectar (carbohydrates) as foragers.