Sycamore Honeydew on raspberry plants

ttenneb

Overhanging sycamore and ash trees from neighbour's garden left sticky deposit on the raspberry bushes. I'm told this is honeydew caused by aphids feeding on the leaves of the trees. While the sticky deposit was on all the bushes it wasn't identified on the fruit itself. If some of the fruit had been affected are there any health implications in consuming the fruit? I've made quite a lot of jam which didn't have any traces of having been compromised. This is the first time it's happened over a long number of years.

looksee

I had no idea so I went down a google rabbit-hole and now know more about aphids than I did before. Presumably you did the same so I don't have any new information for you. The consensus seems to be on the whole that it is not harmful, apart from one website that claimed it was deadly, without giving any further information about how they came to this conclusion.

Really there is not a lot of information, though I did see one reference to it being sold as a very upmarket honey type concoction, though goodness knows how they collect it.

It does sound as though there is very little on the fruit, and the boiling (presumably it is jam and not conserve?) should sterilise it, but you could perhaps come to your own conclusions from this fascinating article which (eventually) suggests it is edible https://influentialpoints.com/aphid/Honeydew!.htm

Jim_Hodge

No issue with it. It's just a composition of 7 types of sugar - fructose, glucose, sucrose etc.