Hervé Logé wrote:

>James Fischer wrote:
>
>
>>Bee saliva supplies any and all enzymes required to
>>
>>
>break down any/all sucrose, exactly as is done in your
>own body.[...]
>
>
>>In fact, heat alone (such as when you
>>heat the water before you add
>>     the sugar when making sugar syrup) will break
>>down a sizeable fraction of
>>     the sucrose to glucose and fructose.
>>
>>
>
>Those two sentences let me think that acide sucrose
>inversion or enzymatic inversion were equivalent. But
>I read (H. Guerriat, 2000) [my free translation]:
>"enzymatic sucrose inversion by bees is totaly
>harmless for them while sucrose inversion in an acid
>medium leads to HMF by-products that are toxic for
>bees".
>
>
>
There are several threads about this in the archives. There was a study
done in the UK that found the best winter feed was white sugar. Boiling
the solution decreased its effectiveness. Adding tartaric acid and
boiling it decreased it even more (led to more bee deaths). Corn syrup
was next, and honey last. So best feed is sugar dissolved in warm water.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine