The foraging behavior of honey bees can be attributed to the nutritional incentives they gain from their activities. Nevertheless, a persistent question has revolved around how the nutritional composition undergoes alterations during the process of converting pollen into bee bread. We embarked on a comprehensive investigation of nutritional shifts, spanning from fresh pollen to bee-pollen, pollen patties, and bee bread. Our research findings unveiled that pollen exhibited notably higher levels of individual amino acids, resulting in significantly elevated overall amino acid content compared to bee-collected pollen. While we provided pollen patty to the honey bee colony, initially, during the first 3 to 7 days, there were no substantial discrepancies in the total amino acid content between bee bread and the pollen patty. Intriguingly, unlike most amino acids, we detected a distinct pattern of higher proline content in bee bread compared to bee-pollen or the pollen patty. This shift in amino acid composition likely stems from the incorporation of nectar and other secretions during the bee bread-making process. Moreover, over a span of approximately 14 days within hive conditions, the amino acid content in bee bread increased. Conversely, in terms of fatty acid contents, they were found to be lower in bee bread than those in the pollen patty, with no significant temporal differences observed. Regarding mineral content, bee bread, in general, contained fewer minerals than bee pollen and pollen patties. In conclusion, the transformation of pollen into bee bread involves dynamic alterations in nutrient contents, influenced by both intrinsic bee-related factors and external factors within the hive environment.

The economic contribution of the pollinators is often estimated in order to understand the importance of the pollinator population, particularly insects. Also declining of the pollinator population would be a potential threat to food production which in turn affects nutritional security negatively. Unlike the economic contribution in terms of currency, seldom the contribution has been addressed in terms of nutrients. In the present paper, we estimated the contribution of pollinator population in the micronutrients viz. minerals and vitamins supply of the country. A higher pollinator dependency than present global average was noted in connection with all minerals deemed nutritionally important and most of the vitamins. Pollinator-dependent (PD) crops provide a substantial share of micronutrients to the population, especially with regard to vitamins C and E and elements iron. A positive trend was found in the PD supply of all micronutrients over the last 30 years in Korea, but the rate of increment was somewhat lower for vitamins C and K as well as folate.

The present study was carried out to assess the perception of entomophagy in the Korean population. 329 respondentsof varying age groups were included in a semi-structured questionnaire survey. Results revealed that altogether 88% ofthe respondents knew ‘entomophagy’ fully or partially which is higher than few other scientific reports examined consumeracceptance in different countries, probably suggesting a rich tradition of using insects for food and medicinal purposesin Korea. Males were found more inclined to accept insect as food while females were neophobic. A similar trend wasobserved in case of using insects as a food ingredient. Acceptance of insect as food and or food ingredients was foundmore among older people in comparison to younger people which could be presumably because of familiarity with ancestralknowledge. Taste or flavor was found the most important determinant factor followed by nutrition and environmental issues.The outcomes of the study advocate ‘awareness’ of food safety, environmental and health issues among consumers canbe an instrument for wide acceptance of entomophagy.

Swarming alates of termite Macrotermes sp. has been accepted as food among people of Benishangul Gumuz zone in west Ethiopia bordering with Sudan. The preference seems to be for the reproductive caste. We assessed the nutritional composition of nymph and alate of Macrotermes sp. of Ethiopia. The adult contained higher amino acids (31%) compared to nymph (21%). However, the distribution of amino acids in the protein was similar (ap. 4:6 essential to non-essential amino acids). Both stages tend to have high fat contents (50%). Fat supplement could be a possible reason behind the human consumption of termites. Beside the bio-prospection of termite as food or oil source, termite foraging would have important evolutionary biology due to their significant amount of energy-yielding nutrients which could presumably be critical resource for development of larger brained hominines.

Despite of having excellent nutritional potential and ecological benefits edible insect has received minimal attention in many part of industrialized civilization. Recently since FAO reported edible insects as one of the best sustainable solution for future food and feed security, global attention has been focussed on the use of insects for food stuffs. In Korea, this phenomenon is accelerating with the help of registration of an Act known as insect industry law which came into effect in 2010. We presented status and trend of research on edible insect and implementation from the global perspectives. Edible insect studies are categorized as 1) status of edible insect resources and distribution, 2) anthropological aspects, 3) biodiversity conservation aspects, 4) edible insect development for diet supplement or food ingredients including some legal aspects, and 5) efforts to bring insects on the table. Lastly some examples of large scale implementation for the production and manufacture systems were presented.