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Sun, 26 May 1996 07:18:39 -0400 |
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In a message dated 96-05-22 19:39:08 EDT, you write:
>
>Will bees eat (be attracted to) artificial sweeteners? I.e., can they be
>"fooled" by Nutrasweet or saccharin? Not that you'd want to feed them with
>it, but is "sweet" to us necessarily sweet to them?
>(Ridiculous, i know, but had to throw it out there.) Just in case your
>bees start getting too portly
My bees wouldn't touch sorbital, even when mixed with some corn syrup. I
had one barrel this spring that was sold to me as corn syrup, but wasn't. It
was a total loss. It also leaves a deposit on comb, which is like rock, and
the bees can't clean it up.
I suspect that nutrasweet would be the same. (I had some fun by posing a
similar question last year on April 1 - you might want to get the log.) I
think the bees' sweetness detectors/taste buds are more effective than ours
in detecting the energy content of the food.
[log in to unmask] Dave Green, PO Box 1200, Hemingway, SC
29554
Practical Pollination Home Page Dave & Janice Green
http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html
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