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Glucose and fructose
November 16th, 2009 by admin
These invert syrups were detrimental to bees in confinement. Doull fed 3 syrups produced by hydrolysis of wheat starch. Moeller of Madison, WI , and by Barker and Lehner without adverse effects but with no survival advantage over sucrose. Except for minor differences in salts and major differences in flavors, these syrups are chemically indistinguishable from honey. Recently, high fructose syrups produced by enzymatic fermentation of corn starch have become available at a lower cost than sucrose. Although the inverted sugar tastes sweeter to man, it is no more attractive than sucrose to buy honey bees. Also, robbing may be less of a problem with inverted sugar because glucose and fructose become less attractive than sucrose when bees reach foraging age. Syrups are convenient to feed, and hydrolysis reduces granulations in syrup. Justification for this practice is not based upon nutritional data but on an assumption that hydrolysis aids digestion.