ArticlePloS one2019
The effect of carbohydrate sources: Sucrose, invert sugar and components of mānuka honey, on core bacteria in the digestive tract of adult honey bees (Apis mellifera).
Article in PloS one, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 49 citations in OpenAlex.
- A network-based meta-analysis of the honeybee gut microbiome: geographic, seasonal, and pesticide-associated shifts.Scientific reports · 2026Pooled it
- Species-specific structuring of gut bacterial and fungal communities in honey bees Apis cerana and Apis mellifera.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2026Article
- Dietary pollen and carbohydrate sources influence longevity, physiology, and gut microbiota in honey bee (Apis mellifera).Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Functional Genomics and Enzymatic Diversity of Gut Bacteria in Apis mellifera: A Multi-Approach Study from India.Current microbiology · 2026Article
- Characterization of Gut Microbiota of Honey Bees in Korea.Polish journal of microbiology · 2025Article
- Dietary modulation of gut microbiota and functional enzymes in savannah honey bees (Apis mellifera scutellata Lepeletier).Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2025Article
- Do honey phytochemicals modulate forager aggression and the gut microbiome in the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.)?Biology open · 2025Article
- Impact of carbohydrate sources on the longevity and physiological traits of the European honey bee workers.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Glycosidase Isoforms in Honey and the Honey Bee (Insects · 2025Article
- A Review of Diet and Foraged Pollen Interactions with the Honeybee Gut Microbiome.Microbial ecology · 2025Review
- Article
- Article
- The Phytochemical Properties of Low-Grade Longan Syrup and Its Potential Use as a Dietary Supplement for Honey Bees.Insects · 2024Article
- Review
- Solitary Bees Host More Bacteria and Fungi on Their Cuticle than Social Bees.Microorganisms · 2023Article
- Carbohydrate nutrition associated with health of overwintering honey bees.Journal of insect science (Online) · 2023Article
- Descending GABAergic pathway links brain sugar-sensing to peripheral nociceptive gating in Drosophila.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Characterization of Lactic Acid Bacteria Strains Isolated from Algerian Honeybee and Honey and Exploration of Their Potential Probiotic and Functional Features for Human Use.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Isolation and characterization ofSaudi journal of biological sciences · 2023Article
- Comparison of gut bacterial communities ofBiodiversity data journal · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Bacteria within the digestive tract of adult honey bees are likely to play a key role in the digestion of sugar-rich foods. However, the influence of diet on honey bee gut bacteria is not well understood. During periods of low floral abundance, beekeepers often supplement the natural sources of carbohydrate that honey bees collect, such as nectar, with various forms of carbohydrates such as sucrose (a disaccharide) and invert sugar (a mixture of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose). We compared the effect of these sugar supplements on the relative abundance of bacteria in the gut of bees by feeding bees from a single colony, two natural diets: mānuka honey, a monofloral honey with known antibacterial properties, and a hive diet; and artificial diets of invert sugar, sucrose solution, and sucrose solutions containing synthesised compounds associated with the antibacterial properties of mānuka honey. 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA)-based sequencing showed that dietary regimes containing mānuka honey, sucrose and invert sugar did not alter the relative abundance of dominant core bacteria after 6 days of being fed these diets. However, sucrose-rich diets increased the relative abundances of three sub-dominant core bacteria, Rhizobiaceae, Acetobacteraceae, and Lactobacillus kunkeei, and decreased the relative abundance of Frischella perrara, all which significantly altered the bacterial composition. Acetogenic bacteria from the Rhizobiaceae and Acetobacteraceae families increased two- to five-fold when bees were fed sucrose. These results suggest that sucrose fuels the proliferation of specific low abundance primary sucrose-feeders, which metabolise sugars into monosaccharides, and then to acetate.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.