TocalHoneybee hives layer antimicrobial defenses around their eggs and larvae.
Defenses reflect local vegetation, so protecting bee habitat protects hive health, researchers say.
Exposed honey and propolis hold the strongest defenses, while wax comb, stored pollen and bees’ bodies filter microbes nearer the center.
Defenses proved more strongly tuned against bacteria than against fungi.
Fernandes’s team, publishing in ISME Communications, sampled 24 colonies in 5 apiaries at one college, so the findings rest on a single region.
How each outlet framed it
- Phys.org leans favorable
- stresses that hive defenses mirror the surrounding ecosystem, so bees near native bushland or farmland show measurably different chemical defenses
Sources: Phys.org