Hi beeliners,
                We are looking at the foraging behaviour of bees on
two cultivars of field beans. Most of the work concerns field observations,
but we are trying ti tie in any differences with other cultivar differences,
e.g. UV reflectance, SEM of pollen, Nectar diurnal production. With reference
to the nectar, we are keen to quantify nectar composition and look for
any differences. Unfortunately, this is only a small part of our project and
simplicity is of the essence - although an accurate method would be nice.
We are thinking of using a GC (as we are familiar with volatile analysis) and de
 rivatising the sugars before analysis. We intend to collect about 10-20ul of
nectar from the two cultivars and to take about 5 replicates of each cultivar.
If the replicates from within a  cultivar are consistent, then we can compare
the two. We appreciate that it would be nice to look at individual flowers
at set points on the raceme during the day, but time does not allow us this
luxury. If it looks promising, we may well undertake such a detailed study.
        Has anyone get any ideas or aletrnative ways we could undertake this
task. Any references concerning cultivar nectar differences would be appreciated
 . We have thought  about HPLC analysis, but are not so familiar with this
technique. For instance, the UV detector on the HPLC should be at what setting -
  we have tried looking at sugars on a spectrophotometer with little success.
Guy Poppy