After a search of the net of medical and scientific sites I came to the
conclusion that there are sugar allergies.

Sugar allergies are generally mild and not necessarily associated with
cane sugar alone. A person can be allergic to cane sugar and not beet,
or beet and not cane. Often, it is not the cane sugar but additives to
the sugar, but cane sugar is blamed (especially "raw" sugar which is
often not "raw" but reprocessed to look "raw"). The usual symptoms are
as with most allergies, sniffles, runny eyes, etc.

I could not find any reputable site that put sugar or any other
allergies in the same category as nut or shellfish (or bee stings!),
which can be serious. In addition, there seemed to be more of a
correlation of cane sugar allergies with someone already suffering from
grass allergies.

So to assume that feeding sugar syrup under the normal conditions that
syrup is fed, and have some of the resulting "sugar syrup honey" make it
into supers will lead to anaphylactic shock is a stretch. Someone
consuming raw honey is as likely to react to pollen in the honey as any
trace amount of cane sugar tainted honey.

I found no correlation with anaphylactic shock and sugar.

There have been several posts on this list that say many add sugar syrup
directly (forget about feeding it to the bees), yet that seems to have
no health effect on the general populace other than getting an inferior
product. It is obvious that if cane sugar (or corn syrup, another
allergen) caused serious health problems in honey, there would have been
more about it in the literature. Either there is not that much
adulterated honey, or there is but it has no health effect. Otherwise,
honey would be on the list of sugars, even on the crackpot sites, but it
is absent (maple and corn syrup did make some lists, not honey).

Something of interest to which I would appreciate a response is  - I
know the sucrose is inverted by the enzymes that the bee introduces, but
is the sucrose that makes it through unaffected or is is it also
modified? Enzymes do interesting things with molecules. Unfortunately
most of the books only speak of sucrose and not isomers.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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