>>  This reminds me
>> that, as I recall, cane sugar is good for bees and
>> beet sugar is not, for some reason.  Make sure
>> you use cane sugar.

Beet sugar has been used for many years in Alberta as winter feed, with
great success.  I use it.  That is what has been available, most of the
time.  I believe also that beet sugar has compared favourably to HFCS in
lab tests in Canada for winter feed, producing significantly longer
lives in caged bees than type 55 HFCS.

As for colour, the sugar syrup we buy -- premixed from the factory -- is
not perfectly colourless.  It has a distinctly dark tint compared to
HFCS when in a 1,250 gallon poly tank, but the difference is not that
noticable when in a small pail.

As for whether sucrose inverts in hot water, I wonder.  The syrup we buy
is mixed by the factory at over 130 degrees F and is either crystal
sugar rehydrated or the syrup from refining, just before being dried to
crystal form, depending on the season.  Also, my understanding is that
considerable heat is used in the processing of the beets -- it seems to
me that they are boiled at some stage in the process, so I personally
doubt the veracity of statements about inversion of sucrose by heat
alone.

At any rate, just because something is written somewhere does not make
it true, any more than my writing that it is not true makes it not true.

Does anyone know for sure under what conditions, if any, sugar will
invert with heat in water, without the aid of other agents or cataysts?

allen
http://www.honeybeeworld.com

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