>We are trying to find a way to provide sterile syrup to bees in indoor
>flight chambers.  The quickest, cheapest, and easiest way is to use
>dextrose (glucose) in IV bags (if we use outdated solution, we will have
>a plentiful supply of "free" syrup.
>
>Question, can anyone comment on the nutritional tradeoffs of using a pure
>dextrose solution rather than a sugar complex?
>
>Thanks
>
>Jerry Bromenshenk
>The University of Montana
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*****
 
   When we were measuring information content in waggle dance maneuvers, we
used sucrose, fructose, and glucose in our feeding dishes.  Although bees
readily drank the sucrose and fructose, they rejected the glucose --- so we
couldn't gather data with that sugar.  The reference to the paper is as
follows:
 
     1967       Wenner, A.M., P.H. Wells and R.J. Rohlf.  An analysis of
the waggle dance and recruitment in honey bees.  Physiol. Zool.
40:317-344.
 
   Later we found in an old edition of ABC & XYZ OF BEEKEEPING the
following comment (paraphrased):
 
   "Don't try to feed corn sugar [glucose] to bees; corn sugar is death to
bees!"
 
   By that expression I infer that they just wouldn't readily imbibe
glucose.  We found the same phenomenon in northern California (1950s) when
we moved a large number of hives up into honeydew [primarily glucose]
country in the fall.  Even though vegetation and litter were sugar coated
with honeydew, colonies switched to that source very slowly.
 
   To get a good honeydew crop, we had to move the colonies into the area
some weeks before honeydew became abundant.  That was risky, since we had
to forecast the degree of honeydew production that year.
 
                                                Adrian
 
 
 
 
 
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* Department of Biology        Office Phone    (805) 893-2838 *
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