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Honey badgers (genus Mellivora) are named for their diet of honey.. Mellivory is a term for the eating of honey.Honey is a sweet and viscous substance created by some eusocial insects, notably bees, for consumption by members of their hives, especially their young.
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. [1] [2] Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies.Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primarily floral nectar) or the secretions of other insects, like the honeydew of aphids.
Vulture bees are reddish-brown in colour, featuring only a few lighter hairs on their thorax, and range in length from 8–22 millimetres (0.31–0.87 in). [1] As with many types of stingless bee, vulture bees have strong, powerful mandibles, which are used to tear off flesh.
Honey bees are affected by parasites including tracheal and Varroa mites. [96] However, some bees are believed to have a mutualistic relationship with mites. [26] Some mites of genus Tarsonemus are associated with bees. They live in bee nests and ride on adult bees for dispersal. They are presumed to feed on fungi, nest materials or pollen.
Most birds that eat bees do so opportunistically; however, summer tanagers will sit on a limb and catch dozens of bees from the hive entrance as they emerge. [88] Mammals that sometimes predators of western honey bees include giant armadillos, [89] opossums, raccoons, skunks, the North American least shrew and the honey badger.
Developing queen larvae surrounded by royal jelly. Royal jelly is a honey bee secretion that is used in the nutrition of larvae and adult queens. [1] It is secreted from the glands in the hypopharynx of nurse bees, and fed to all larvae in the colony, regardless of sex or caste.
Honey bees obtain all of their nutritional requirements from a diverse combination of pollen and nectar. Pollen is the only natural protein source for honey bees. Adult worker honey bees consume 3.4–4.3 mg of pollen per day to meet a dry matter requirement of 66–74% protein. [52]
The metabolism of bees and humans is sufficiently different that bees can safely collect nectars from plants that contain compounds toxic to humans. The honey produced by bees from these toxic nectars can be poisonous if consumed by humans. In addition, natural processes can introduce toxic substances into honey produced from nontoxic nectar.