Honeydew (secretion)

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Honeydew (secretion)

Honeydew is a sugar

Sugar

Sugar is a class of edible crystalline substances, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose. Human taste buds interpret its flavor as sweet. Sugar as a basic food carbohydrate primarily comes from sugar cane and from sugar beet, but also appears in fruit, honey, sorghum, sugar maple , and in many other sources....
-rich sticky substance, secreted by aphids and some scale insect

Scale insect

The scale insects are small insects of the order Hemiptera, generally classified as the superfamily Coccoidea. There are about 8,000 species of scale insects....
s as they feed on plant sap

Plant sap

Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. Fluid found in the vacuoles of other cells is sometimes referred to as "cell sap"....
.

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Honeydew is a sugar

Sugar

Scale insect

The scale insects are small insects of the order Hemiptera, generally classified as the superfamily Coccoidea. There are about 8,000 species of scale insects....
s as they feed on plant sap

Plant sap

Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. Fluid found in the vacuoles of other cells is sometimes referred to as "cell sap"....
. When their mouthpart penetrates the phloem

Phloem

In vascular plants, phloem is the living Biological tissue that carries organic nutrients , particularly sucrose, a sugar, to all parts of the plant where needed....
, the sugary, high-pressure liquid is forced out of the gut's terminal opening. Honeydew is particularly common as a secretion in the Hemiptera

Hemiptera

Hemiptera is an order of insects, comprising around 80,000 species of cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, shield bugs, and others. They range in size from 1 mm to around 15 cm, and share a common arrangement of sucking mouthparts ....
n insects and is often the basis for trophobiosis

Trophobiosis

Trophobiosis is a symbiosis association between organisms where food is obtained or provided. The provider of food in the association is referred to as a trophobiont....
. Some caterpillar

Caterpillar

Caterpillars are the larval form of a member of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly phytophagous in food habit, with some species being entomophagous....
s of lycaenidae

Lycaenidae

The Lycaenidae are the second-largest family of butterfly, with about 6000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies....
butterflies and some moths also produce honeydew. Honeydew can cause sooty mold

Sooty mold

Sooty molds are Ascomycete fungi which grow from the sugary honeydew secreted by plants and insects aphids, scale insect, the whitefly, and other insects which suck sap from their host plants....
on many ornamental plant

Ornamental plant

Ornamental plants are typically grown in the flower garden or as house plants. Most commonly they are grown for the display of their flowers. Other common ornamental features include leaves, scent, fruit, Plant stem and bark....
s, a bane of gardeners.

Honeydew is collected by certain species of birds, wasp

WAsP

WAsP is a PC program for predicting wind climates, wind resources, and power productions from wind turbines and wind farms. The predictions are based on wind data measured at stations in the same region....
s and honey bee

Honey bee

Honey bees are a subset of bees, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of wiktionary:perennial, Colony nests out of beeswax....
s, which process it into a dark, strong honey

Honey

Honey is a sweet fluid produced by honey bees , and derived from the nectar of flowers. According to the United States National Honey Board and various international food regulations, "honey stipulates a pure product that does not allow for the addition of any other substance?this includes, but is not limited to, water or other sweeteners...
(honeydew honey

Honey

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
for its reputed medicinal value.

Ant

Ant

Ants are Eusociality insects of the family Formicidae, and along with the related wasps and bees, they belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolution from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and Evolutionary radiation after the rise of flowering plants....
s 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

Coccinellidae

Coccinellidae is a family of beetles, known variously as ladybirds , ladybugs or lady beetles . Lesser-used names include ladyclock, lady cow, and lady fly....
.

Religion and mythology

In Norse mythology

Norse mythology

Norse, Viking or Scandinavian mythology comprises the beliefs, myths and legends of the Norse paganism of the North Germanic language people, including those who settled on Faroe Islands and Iceland, where most of the written sources for Norse mythology were assembled....
, dew

Dew

Dew is water in the form of droplets that appears on thin, exposed objects in the morning or evening. As the exposed surface cools by thermal radiation its heat, atmospheric moisture condensation at a rate greater than that at which it can evaporation, resulting in the formation of water droplets....
falls from the world tree Yggdrasil

Yggdrasil

File:The Ash Yggdrasil by Friedrich Wilhelm Heine.jpgIn Norse mythology, Yggdrasil is the world tree. Yggdrasil is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson....
to the earth, and according to the Prose Edda
Prose Edda

The Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorri's Edda or simply Edda, is an Old Norse language Icelandic collection of four sections interspersed with excerpts from earlier skaldic and Eddic poetry containing tales from Norse mythology....
book Gylfaginning
Gylfaginning

Gylfaginning, or the Tricking of Gylfi , is the first part of Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda after Prologue . The Gylfaginning deals with the creation and destruction of the world of the Norse gods, and many other aspects of Norse mythology....
, "this is what people call honeydew and from it bees feed."

Honeydew (secretion)

Religion and mythology

See also