Melipona beecheii gut enzymes; from nectar to honey

Abstract

The honey gut is recognized for storing the nectar that bees collect from flowers to subsequently move to the hive. Therefore, the objective of this work was to determine the enzymes of Melipona beecheii and Apis mellifera involved in the process of converting nectar to honey. The samples were: wax, nectar and honey. Twenty bees were captured, dividing each one into two parts to dissect and obtain the crop, to prepare two different extracts Bee Gut Extracts Without Nectar (BGEWN) and Bee Gut Extracts Full of Nectar (BGEFN). We determined the diastase content (D), invertase (I), glucose oxidase (GO), catalase (CAT), acid phosphatase (FA) and protease (P) in addition to physicochemical parameters such as pH, moisture and reducing sugars. According to the results, between samples and between bee species, significant differences were found for each physicochemical evaluation. When comparing the enzymatic values, they showed significant differences although the highest values corresponded to the BGEFN samples.