The use of invertebrate models has allowed researchers to examine the mechanisms behind alcoholism and its effects with a cost-effective system. In that respect, the honey bee is an ideal model species to study the effects of ethanol (EtOH) due to the behavioural and physiological similarities of honey bees with humans when alcohol is consumed. Although both ingestion and inhalation methods are used to dose subjects in insect EtOH model systems, there is little literature on the use of the EtOH vapor-exposure method for experiments using honey bees. The experiment presented here provides baseline data for a dose EtOH-haemolymph response curve when using EtOH vapor-inhalation dosing with honey bees (Apis mellifera). Bees were exposed to EtOH vapors for 0, 1, 2.5, or 5 min, and haemolymph was collected 1 min post EtOH exposure. Haemolymph samples were analyzed using gas chromatography (GC) for haemolymph EtOH concentration. The ethanol-haemolymph level of the bees increased linearly with ethanol exposure time. The results provide a dosing guide for haemolymph EtOH level in the honey bee model ethanol-inhalation system, and thus makes the honey bee model more robust.

The data was collected as honey bee haemolymph through blood draws. The samples were analyzed through gas chromatography analysis.