Pollen and nectar consumed by honey bees contain plantsecondary metabolites (PSMs) with vital roles in plant–insect interactions. While PSMs can be toxic to bees, theycan also be health-promoting, e.g. by improving pesticideand pathogen tolerances. As xenobiotics, PSMs undergopost-ingestion chemical modifications that can affect theirbioactivity and transmission to the brood. Despite theimportance of understanding honey bee PSM metabolismand distribution for elucidating bioactivity mechanisms, theseaspects remain largely unexplored. In this study, we usedHPLC-MS/MS to profile 47 pollen PSMs in honey bees andlarvae. Both adult bees and larvae had distinct PSM profilesthat differed from their diet. This is likely due to post-ingestion metabolism and compound-dependent variationsin PSM transmission to the brood via nurse bee jelly.Phenolic acids and flavonoid aglycones were most abundantin bees and larvae, whereas alkaloids, cyanogenic glycosidesand diterpenoids had the lowest abundance despite beingconsumed in higher concentrations. This study documentslarval exposure to a variety of PSMs for the first time, withconcentrations increasing from early to late larval instars. Ourfindings provide novel insights into the post-ingestion fateof PSMs in honey bees, providing a foundation for furtherexploration of biotransformation pathways and PSM effectson honey bee health.
Phytochemical profiles of honey bees (Apis mellifera) and their larvae differ from the composition of their pollen diet
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