Hi Lloyd/All
 
Lloyd you mentioned that there are problems with yeasts in sugar
syrup feeders and that making the water more alkaline or more ascetic
helps.
 
As far as I know the following should be the case. Most yeasts have
an optimum growth pH above or below which their growth is pathetic. I
know that two common yeasts in bees, Candida apis and apicola both
don't grow below a ph of 3.7 - or at least they don't grow well.
Likewise the same yeast does not grow well at a ph in excess of 8.00.
They do however grow at these ph, just slower. AS they grow they can
sometimes depending on the yeast change the ph to suit themselves.
Hence if one is to acidify or alkalinise a sugar solution to stop
growth using a buffer would be good. I would go for a citrate or
acetate buffer as both of these acids should be of nutritional use to
the bees.
 
The danger with droppin the ph of a sugar solution is that if it is
heated and the ph is below about 4 you get hectic caramelisation and
a white sugar solution becomes a dark brown sugar solution -
something I am sure the bees would not like. I know my yeast dislike
it.
 
I would not alkalinise it though - I remember hearing that honey is
naturally acetic - if the bees are not able to change it's ph they
are likely to store it as alkaline honey and then the honey will eat
away at the wax turning it into soluble soapy stuff that may dissolve
into the honey and so on. Alternatively the bees may try for ages to
drop the pH of the honey and exhaust their internal supplues of H+
ions giving one woozy bees with alkaline haemolymph (sort of similar
to bees taking too many tums). Even one teespoon of NaOH in a large
drum of sugar soln would raise the pH to over 9 or 10.
 
Keep well
 
Garth
Garth Cambray           Camdini Apiaries
15 Park Road
Grahamstown             Apis mellifera capensis
6139
South Africa
 
Time = Honey
 
If you are not living on the edge you are taking up too much space!!