The Carbohydrate Components of Honeydew

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Abstract
All attempts to feed the citrus mealy bug, P. citri (Risso), on artificial diets failed. The carbohydrate components of P. citri honeydew and of the sap of the food plant, Irish potato sprout, were determined by paper-partition chromatography. Honeydew contained fructose, glucose, sucrose, fructomaltose (a recently discovered trisac-charide), and glucose- 1-phosphate. Potato-sprout sap contained fructose, glucose, sucrose, and gluclose.l-phosphate. It is believed that fructomaltose is an intermediate product formed during the process of hydrolysis of sucrose by invertase which was produced by the insect. Fructomaltose may be identical with the trisaccharide, [alpha]-maltosyl [beta]-D-fructofuranoside, recently synthesized by White and Maher (1953). Many of the properties are identical. Honeydew is to be regarded as a digestive product rather than merely a mixture of excess carbohydrates and water.

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