Early in the spring, the winter food supplies are rapidly consumed by the bees and thus it is very important to provide supplements, usually sugar additives, to the colony. During the periods of inclement environmental conditions, colonies must be fed adequately to provide normal development. Sugar or honey home-made candies are appropriate for feeding mating nuclei or young and productive honey bee colonies.



In our experiment, we used five sugar candies manufactured on the market in April 2013 and one home-made candy. The aim of the study was to determine HMF concentration in sugar candies and to test the worker bee longevity when fed by these candies. Home-made sugar candy was prepared in our laboratory containing refined yeast 5%, tap water 5% and sucrose to 100%.



The longest worker survival was found in those fed ‘Apimel’, ‘home-made’ and ‘Stimulans’ candy (27 days), where HMF was the lowest using HPLC analyses, while the bees fed ‘Medopip Standard’ and ‘Medopip Plus’, the candies witth the highest HMF, had a shorter life span (24 and 20 days, respectively). However, in one of our previous experiments, workers fed sugar syrups lived more than 30 days (Smodiš Škerl et al., 2012). 



Maja Ivana Smodiš Škerl and Aleš Gregorc, A preliminary laboratory study on the longevity of A. m. carnica honey bees after feeding with candies containing HMF. Journal of Apicultural Research 53(4): 422-423 (2014) DOI 10.3896/IBRA.1.53.4.07



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