Hello Randy & All,

> .  Easier to
 obtain,

 How so?

> cheaper,

 At .46 a pound dry weight sucrose is hardly cheaper than HFCS

>> longer shelf life without spoilage,

 When bleach is added no problem and both sucrose & HFCS have HMF issues
over
 time.

> lack of
>> crystallization at high solids content.

 True

>> Many have gone to sucrose/HFCS blends.

 Mainly  because of cost of sucrose is expensive as compared to HFCS. My
feed
 cost were increased by a third when I went to sucrose.

 HFCS contains two ingredients which by their selves are poison to bees
 stachyose & raffinose.

 You can read the story in the April 2007 American Bee journal pg. 323.
 The same study was done in 1974 at the Tucson Bee lab by Roy Barker.

Barker in a 1974 paper reported  bees when fed a solution spiked with 2%
stachyose that 80% of the bees were dead in 16 days ,whereas only 6% were
dead in the same period when fed the unspiked sucrose. stachyose  (also
raffinose) is not found in sucrose (like  HFCS) so sucrose was used to get a
clear picture of the effect of stachyose on the longevity of honey bees.

 Consider *if* the research of Dr. Gregory and the research done at Tucson
in
 1977 by Roy Barker are correct in that bees fed HFCS live half as long as
 bees fed sucrose then like in both studies the bees would die in the last
 few weeks of life. A similar situation to bees with nosema.

 In Missouri I ran tests feeding both and the hives fed sucrose were more
 populace. When checked the difference was there were a higher number of
 older  bees in the sucrose fed hives. The difference was obvious.
Once pointed out by me other beeks noticed what I was seeing.

 I control nosema and feed sucrose as I need the honey produced by the
 forager bees which died prematurely from nosema or from being fed HFCS.

 I did the research just as Dr. Gregory & Roy Barker did except on a larger
 scale and in actual field conditions. Got the same result.

I found a side by side test with hives worked best for me although I own a
expensive incubator like the one Dr. Gregory used and could easily duplicate
the experiments of both Gregory & Barker. All I would need do is make the
boxes

 I do experiments also. Only on a larger scale than most. Most of my
experiments I have discussed on BEE-L involve at least a 100 hives.

 My research on the Russian bees involved 450 Russian/Russian queens over a
 period of 4-5 years . With 26 being instrumentally inseminated
 Russian/Russian breeder queens.

 Losing foragers in the last couple weeks of foraging is a big deal to a
 professional beekeeper.

 Many commercial beekeepers in my opinion should be in a different line of
 work. Totally in the dark about what is going on in the industry. Others
are
 on top of things.

I have read the full page adds on HFCS/ sucrose & blends. All you need to
know about syrup feeds with a few yes and no answers. The subject is far to
complex for those yes & no answers.

 bob

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