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".


> it is NOT true that breaking down sucrose
> into glucose and fructose takes
> any "effort" at all.  Therefore, it is not true that
> feeding glucose and fructose, rather
> than sucrose, is any "better for the bees" than
> feeding pure sucrose.

It may be true but have you sone studies to support
this affirmation? H. Guerriat explains the inverted
sugar use because of the it could lower bees work(but
it is just an hypothesis. I read in his book (p.
304)[my free translation]:" sucrose invertion by bees
requieres invertase production. That enzym is a
protein whose important production by bees requieres a
huge physiologic effort. Such effort could not be
indicated before wintering". But in the next paragraph
H. Guerriat describes an experimentaion showing that
bees chose sucrose solution instead of inverted sugar
when both are offered to them. R. zimmer writes that
solid sugar break down by bees could lead to reduce
bees fat reserves.

> I have no idea what would result from feeding sugar
> syrup with a high concentration of invertase
> due to an incomplete invertase reaction, but it sure
> is not something that bees are used to finding
> in nectar.

H. Guerriat also writes that bees, in a lab expriment,
have shorter life when feed with inverted sugar. The
same affirmation is written by R.Zimmer in "L'abeille
buckfast en question(s)". He explains than queens have
shorter life when candi is often used.


References:

H. Guerriat - Être performant en apiculture - 2000
R. Zimmer - L'abeille Buckfast en question(s) - 1999


Hervé

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