Some remarks from Eva Crane’s in her book ‘Bees and Beekeeping Science,
Practice and World Resources’

“Where winters are mild, various forms of unrefined sugar may be fed, but
for cold winters refined sugar, such as white table sugar, must be used.
For a similar reason, honeys containing material that cannot be absorbed by
the honeybee gut are unsuitable as the sole food for colonies in cold
winters–for instance most honeydew honeys, especially if crystalized and
heather honey. Combs of such honeys can, however, be left in the hive for
winter, provided at least 5-10 kg refined sugar is also fed. There is quite
a lot of evidence that colonies wintered entirely on sugar syrup, with no
honey, perform less satisfactorily in the next active season than colonies
wintered with some honey; this is one reason for not harvesting honey combs
from the brood box(es).

Rinderer and Baxter (1980) found that bees took HFCS more readily than
sucrose syrup at the same (high) concentration, and they suggest that
unintentional adulteration of honey might result from feeding with
HFCS........In autumn 1969 many beekeepers in England fed colonies with
concessionary syrup that had been dyed green. The colonies were in brood
boxes only, and next spring empty honey supers were added as usual. The
honey stored in some of them was green showing that the bees had moved
stores from brood box to honey supers many months after feeding. This also
raises the question of inadvertent honey adulteration resulting from
feeding bees with sugar, even in autumn.”

Rinderer, T.E.; Baxter, J.R. (1980) Honey bee hoarding of high fructose
corn syrup and cane sugar syrup. Am. Bee J. 120(12):817-818

Regards,
Dick Allen

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