Granulation of Ivy Nectar and Honey in the Honey Stomach of the Honeybee

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Abstract
Beekeepers whose colonies had been foraging on ivy found many bees dead outside their hives, with their honey stomachs full of crystallized ivy nectar or honey. When bees in the laboratory, and a colony in a field cage, were fed a sugar solution containing a proportion of glucose similar to that in ivy nectar, deaths occurred only when the solution was strongly supersaturated. The bees died before their honey-stomach contents had crystallized enough to make the abdomen too rigid to allow breathing movements, and estimation of the sugars in the thorax showed that the cause of death was probably not starvation. In contrast to another report, most of the sugar found in the thorax of unstarved bees was glucose and fructose; only traces of trehalose were found.