Honey is good for you, and it’s a nice natural substitute for sweeteners like table sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. But it’s good for bees as well--and vitally important to their well-being, as it turns out. Honey contributes a detoxifying effect that can protect bees from pesticides.

For American agriculture, bees are valuable not for their honey, but for their pollination services--without them, you wouldn’t have almonds, blueberries, tomatoes and a long list of other crucial crops. For this reason, bees are often hired out by the hive to pollinate farmers’ fields. That means they are exposed to a wide range of pesticides meant to ward off other insects. But honeybees throughout North America have been dying by the millions for a decade now, often simply disappearing from their hives never to return. The phenomenon now known as colony collapse disorder has many possible culprits, from pathogens to pesticides.

Researchers are making headway in mapping the genes that help bees overcome these obstacles, including which genes help them safely break down pesticides. Now researchers have identified several compounds that help turn on those genes. They’re present in honey, something commercial bees don’t get to keep--their food supply is taken for human use, and bees are feed sweet substitutes like corn syrup.