When honey-picking bees lose their flowers, what do they become?
No one seems to have ever doubted the loyalty of bees to nectar, just as no one has ever considered whether bees will lose from the fierce competition for the flower fields.
Bees picking honey
Until a group of bees started eating meat...
The painting style turns, and the bees are eating meat
This is a thornless bee in the tropics, perhaps because it is really not good enough to travel, or perhaps it is a chance to taste a bite of meat that feels "really fragrant", in short, their menu is changing from flowers to rotten meat. Some of these bees are still in the "omnivorous" stage - nectar is meat, and the more they eat, the more they eat, the more they have. At the other extreme, they have become "carnivores" entirely (carbohydrates are obtained only from nectar glands and fruits outside the flowers, proteins are obtained from vertebrate carcasses), and even teeth have evolved to be better at biting meat.
There is a "Venom" flavor
Doug Yanega, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside, said: "This is the only bee in the world that has evolved to be able to feed on non-plants. "It boils down to the fact that these bees are very cattle.
Because such a subversive change in eating habits is a very difficult thing for bees. First of all, the structure of the meat determines that it is destined to be more difficult to mouth than nectar pollen (otherwise how can it still evolve teeth), and secondly, how to digest it after eating? Not to mention that carrion also contains a lot of bacteria, if there is no superior skill, then bees eating this meat is completely the "last supper".
To discover the secrets of the carnivorous bees, the team traveled to Costa Rica, hung raw chicken from a branch as bait, and coated it with vaseline to drive away the ants, catching them in this way.
Example of a bee trap station
Usually, the spineless bee (usually the worker bee) has a "pollen basket" on its hind legs, which is a groove on the outside of the expanded hindpod, and the groove is surrounded by long, dense fluff to brush the pollen into the groove, and they rely on this small "pollen basket" to bring back more pollen.
A bee is collecting honey on hyacinths with a pollen basket on its hind legs
The bees that switched to carnivorous are still proficient in this technique, except that their "pollen baskets" have no pollen, all meat. Although a little scary, compared to the honey-collecting bees, the research team observed that the grooves in the hind legs of carnivorous bees were very small, and the capacity was far less than that of ordinary bees. (Maybe they can get more energy from meat and don't need to bring more.)
The hind legs of carnivorous bees do not have a swollen pollen basket, which contains meat
Then the research team began to analyze the gut microbiota of carnivorous bees, not to look at it, but to be frightened. The gut microbiome of pure carnivorous bees is rich in acidophilic bacteria, some of the new (for bee) bacteria that their relatives don't have in their bodies.
Eating meat has revolutionized the environment of these bees' digestive systems, losing some of the "core" microbes left behind by their ancestors (digesting the toxic sugars in some nectar) and replacing them with other new microbiota, while also making clever connections with acidophilic microbes. This operation is even somewhat similar to professional scavenging players such as vultures and hyenas.
Scavenging vultures
Both Lactobacillus and Bodobacterium found in their intestines are associated with digesting meat. At the same time, the acidic intestines can better protect them from pathogens in carrion.
While diet can indeed greatly affect the composition of host gut microbes, such as humans, who can change their gut microbiome through different diets in just two days, the more sudden and extreme dietary shift of carnivorous wasps is really a surprise to the digestive system.
For carnivorous bees, there are many unsolved mysteries that the research team is exploring in depth, including how they use the carrion. Because, according to the research team, their honey is still sweet.
There is a saying that after they bring the carrion back, they will put the meat in the hive and seal it with nectar, and after about 14 days of honeymaking, the mixture will become a paste rich in free amino acids and sugars, and the taste is no different from honey.
It's just that if such a jar of honey brewed with the participation of carnivorous bees is placed in front of you, would you want to taste it?
Main reference sources:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211123131006.htm
https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mBio.02317-21
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Original title: Too "bee" crazy! Honey bees switched to eating meat
Source: Science and Technology Association Channel
Edit: Garrett
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