george seferiadis wrote:

> Let me start in saying that process sugar is a dead food ,period.There =
> is no life in it. With that saying I will try to explain why honey is =
> the only food bees should feed on. Honey bees extract nectar from =
> flowers, and carry the nectar  in a honey sac, wherein special enzymes =
> break down . the complex sucrose into two simple sugars: fructose and =
> glucose.This fluid is deposited in open cells.

I read some portions of the Hive and the Honey Bee (1992 edition) along
with other sources and gleaned the following:

1. Many plants produce nectar that is mainly sucrose. White cane/beet
sugar is 99% sucrose.

2. Bees make enzymes in their own bodies to add to nectar in order for
it to break down into what we know as honey. The nectar does not do it
by itself but requires the bee. (as noted above) So nectar could be
considered "dead" since it requires conversion and the addition of
enzymes by the bee.

3. White sugar (99% sucrose) is to quote from a quick search on the
internet -WHAT IS SUCROSE?
Sucrose is a disaccharide, a combination of the two monosaccharides,
glucose and fructose. When eaten sucrose is broken down to glucose and
fructose in the intestine and these two simple sugars are readily
absorbed into the bloodstream. Most of the fructose is converted into
glucose in the liver. Like all carbohydrates, sucrose is ultimately used
by the body as glucose for energy. (my comment- The article applied to
human diet.)

4. Nectar contains various trace elements and can be combinations of
glucose, fructose and sucrose. But the bee really does not care what the
combination is, since they convert any nectar to "honey", with all the
enzymes necessary, in varying degrees, for it to be called honey
regardless of the source.

5. Natural sources of nectar lead to varying amounts of glucose and
fructose in the resulting honey but by in large it is in the area of
37-40% fructose to 30-35% glucose with water and other sugars taking up
most of the rest. Bees convert sucrose to fructose and glucose through
enzymes in their body.

6. Many of the other things that give honey its normal characteristics
do not come from the floral source, but are added by the bee. That even
includes its acidic character (which was news to me). To quote from
THATHB, "many of these sugars are not found in nectar but are formed by
the bee enzymes and the acids in honey". The predominate acid in honey
is gluconic acid which "originates largely from the activity of the
glucose oxidase which the bee adds at ripening" along with some
bacterial action.

So, if sucrose is fed to the bee for overwintering, the only difference
in the resulting honey would be trace elements, not enzymes, since the
enzymes for conversion to "honey"  all come from the bee. And the
resulting honey from white sugar would have all the enzymes necessary to
be called honey. There would be some variability with the amount of
enzymes but that is mostly due to environmental conditions (THATHB), but
since the bees also carry the necessary enzymes in their digestive tract
(like we do- see 4 above) then sucrose fed to the bees for overwintering
would be perfectly acceptable/digestible/energy producing. Especially
since some nectar sources are nearly pure sucrose. I do not see how it
would damage their immune system. Especially in view of the experience
of many in the north who overwinter on white sugar produced honey alone
but have trouble with nectar produced honey. In essence, we are
substituting the natural nectar source with a pure sucrose "nectar". And
we are using the most benign "nectar" source for our long winters.

However, I bow to those experts that could shed more illumination on the
subject of bee digestion and honey production since mine is mostly from
books.

I think we are in a "white death" (the approbation linked to granulated
sugar) discussion that will lead nowhere. But to show I am even handed,
I do not feed the other "white death", which is white bread, to my bees.

They love tofu. Occasional Beefsteak Rye, but only with knockwurst.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, ME