I know a number of RCG volunteers have asked about why bees are fed sugar.
Why feed bees at all?
First is in Autumn when they are fed a syrup solution made up of sugar and water – this is when either they haven’t had chance to make up sufficient stores of honey for winter or because the beekeeper has taken too much honey and needs to top up their supplies.
Second is in Winter or early Spring when they are fed fondant (sugar but with less water so it creates a ‘cake’) – this is when either they have used their Winter stores because of particularly mild Winter weather or cool Spring weather. Fondant is given because the outside temperature is too cool for the bees to effectively reduce the moisture content of syrup.
So why feed bees sugar - especially white sugar?
That’s because that’s what adult bees eat. Most insects are holometabolous – meaning that different forms of the insect have different functions. The larvae are there to eat and put on bulk. The adult function is to reproduce (in honeybees the queen and the drones take on this role). Adult insects don’t have a digestive system as we know it – they cannot process food to create new cell growth. They come out of the pupae fully formed and are sustained only by sugar which provides energy to power movement. It’s not like us living on sugar – sugar is all they eat. Bee larvae eat pollen – that’s their protein source for growth. Any sugar given to bees is not given to the larvae – they wouldn’t want it.
Nectar is sugar – mainly the disaccharide Sucrose. Bees process this sucrose into the monosaccharides Glucose and Fructose. Feeding white sugar – Sucrose – is really no different to bees feeding on nectar. Brown sugar actually contains compounds which can be toxic to bees.
So why not feed them sugar all the time?
Because obviously it wouldn’t be natural. Nectar has a higher water content as well as containing tiny amounts of plant oils, pollen and trace elements and minerals. Adult bees could survive on a pure sugar diet but they prefer nectar – when given the choice they will ignore syrup and fondant and go to flowers for nectar instead. That’s why the two types of feeding are done when there are either no or very limited nectar sources available – in the two emergency situations described above.
What would happen if they were fed sugar all the time?
They would convert it to ‘honey’ – except that it wouldn’t be real honey and it would be missing all the many compounds (up to 180 of them) that pure honey contains. Commercial beekeepers may do this – probably not in the UK but definitely in sources like China. Honey adulteration is a major problem – but that’s another story.
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