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Honeydew is a sugar-rich sticky liquid, secreted by aphids and some scale insects as they feed on plant sap. When their mouthpart penetrates thephloem, the sugary, high-pressure liquid is forced out of the gut's terminal opening. Honeydew is particularly common as a secretion in the Hemipteraninsects and is often the basis for trophobiosis.^[1] Some caterpillars oflycaenidae butterflies and some moths also produce honeydew.^[2]Honeydew can cause sooty mold—a bane of gardeners—on manyornamental plants.

Honeydew is collected by certain species of birds, wasps and honey bees, which process it into a dark, strong honey (honeydew honey). This is highly prized in parts of Europe and Asia for its reputed medicinal value.

Ants may even collect, or "milk," honeydew directly from aphids, which benefit from their presence due to their ability to drive away predators such as lady beetles.

In Madagascar, some gecko species in the genera Phelsuma andLygodactylus are known to approach Flatid plant-hoppers on tree-trunks from below and induce them to excrete honeydew by head nodding behaviour. The plant-hopper then raises its abdomen and excretes a drop of honeydew almost right onto the snout of the gecko.^[3]

Religion and mythology

In Norse mythology, dew falls from the ash tree Yggdrasil to the earth, and according to the Prose Edda bookGylfaginning, "this is what people call honeydew and from it bees feed."^[4]

In Greek mythology, méli, or "honey", drips from the Manna–ash, (Fraxinus ornus), with which the Meliae, or "ash treenymphs", nursed the infant god Zeus on the island of Crete,^[5] (as in the Hymn to Zeus by Callimachus).

Respect for honeydew is reflected in the last lines of Samuel Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan:

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

See also

• List of honeydew sources

Notes

• 1. ^ Delabie, JHC (2001) Trophobiosis Between Formicidae and Hemiptera (Sternorrhyncha and Auchenorrhyncha): an Overview. Neotropical Entomology 30(4):501-516 PDF

  2. ^ Maschwitz U, Dumpert K, Tuck KR (1986). "Ants feeding on anal exudate from tortricid larvae: a new type of trophobiosis". Journal of Natural History 20 (5): pp. 1041–1050. doi:10.1080/00222938600770751.

  3. ^ Foelling, M; C Knogge and W Bohme. "Geckos are milking honeydew-producing planthoppers in Madagascar". J. Nat. Hist. 2001: 279–284.

  4. ^ Faulkes (1995:18–19).

  5. ^ Clauss, James Joseph (1993). The Best of the Argonauts: The Redefinition of the Epic Hero in Book 1 of Apollonius's Argonautica. Hellenistic culture and society. 10. University of California Press. p. 170.ISBN 9780520079250.

References

• • Faulkes, Anthony (Trans.) (1995). Edda. Everyman. ISBN 0-460-87616-3

Categories: Insect products | Hemiptera