CATDOLL : CATDOLL: Do bees eat sugar? Is it poisonous? (Do bees eat sugar? Is it poisonous? Picture)

1. I just bought a box of bees. Is it right to feed them sugar every day?

During the spring breeding season, place two beehives side by side. In the evening without wind, feed each bee colony with 250-300ml of sugar water (sucrose: water = 1:1) or honey diluted with water. After 2 hours, when the bees are excited and dispersed, and the temperature in the box rises, you can shake the bees and tighten the honeycombs.

When tightening the combs, only one comb can be selected and all the extra combs can be removed, which can prompt the queen bee to lay eggs quickly. After tightening the combs, reward feeding is carried out from the bottom of the box every night. Sugar water or honey water is placed in the feeder at the bottom of the box. The first feeding can be slightly more, generally 350~400ml per group, and then it depends on the number of bees and the size of the egg-laying circle. It is appropriate to have a small amount of horn honey on the comb. Feeding should be frequent, once a night, without interruption, and the feeding amount should not be too much. Early queen rearing in spring is more conducive to the reproduction of the bee colony than adding supers, and it is another key technical measure for expanding reproduction in beekeeping production. In spring, the main nectar source period arrives early and the nectar source is abundant, but the temperature in early spring is not very stable, and the colony proliferation period is short. In early spring, it is necessary to choose a time when the temperature is relatively stable, the nectar and pollen source is abundant, the bee colony is strong, and there are a large number of sexually mature drones to rear the queen.

2. Do bees eat white sugar?

Bees eat sugar. As we all know, bees live on honey. As long as there is a source of honey, they will not stop for 365 days a year. However, there are four seasons in the climate, and it is impossible to have a source of honey in every season. Therefore, in the season without a source of honey, beekeepers have to take measures to help the bees survive. Feeding the bees with sugar water is a good way. That is, melt sugar and water in a certain proportion, and feed them artificially, so that they can survive the difficulty of no honey source.

3. Will feeding bees with sugar water containing MSG have any adverse consequences for them?

No, white sugar is sucrose. Scientists at Cambridge University used sucrose as food to lure bees in order to study their recognition ability. MSG is sodium glutamate, which is the sodium salt of glutamic acid. It has high solubility and becomes a sodium ion and a negatively charged glutamic acid after dissolving. Amino acids can be positive or negative, and animals have complete amino acids. Therefore, it is harmless for bees to use MSG, and it does not react with sucrose. In addition, if you encounter a bee far away from the nest, it may be a dying bee, because bees are obsessed with cleanliness and will run out of the nest before dying.

4. Can bees eat white sugar with oil?

Yes, but you can’t eat it all the time.

The specific steps of making it are as follows: Pour white sugar into boiling water and stir constantly. When the sugar water boils, remove the foam on top, add a little water, and boil it (do not boil it any more to prevent it from becoming mushy). Finally, add 0.1% to 0.2% salt, and feed it to the bees after it cools down. It is worth noting that white sugar has a single ingredient and not only lacks some nutrients necessary for bees to survive the winter, but also requires the bees' internal energy to decompose sucrose into monosaccharides to remove excess water before it can be used.

After bees eat syrup, the feces in their intestines increase, which will cause them to become restless during the wintering period and make it impossible for them to survive the winter smoothly. This not only greatly increases the possibility of abnormal death of bees, but also makes the bee colony more susceptible to disease, resulting in slow development of the bee colony in spring.

5. What kind of sugar is best for bees to eat?

Bees are raised to obtain pure honey, but sometimes due to bad weather conditions, honey harvests fail and bees have a food problem. Therefore, in bad years, bees must be fed with honey or sugar. Since the cost of feeding honey is high, sugar is now commonly used to feed bee colonies. Since sugar has a single nutritional value, inferior and high-quality sugar have a great impact on bee colonies, so it is very important to choose the quality of sugar.

White sugar is now divided into four grades: refined, premium, first grade, and second grade. Refined, premium, and first grade white sugar are generally used for household consumption, and second grade white sugar is generally used for industrial production. Due to the different grades of white sugar, the quality and price are also different. The first thing to do when feeding white sugar to beekeepers is to control the cost, after all, it is consumed by millions of bees. Therefore, beekeepers basically use second grade white sugar to feed bees. I prefer to use white sugar made from sugarcane. Although sugar can also be made from beets, the purity and quality of white sugar made from sugarcane are higher, and it is dry and easy to store, which is more suitable for feeding bee colonies.

Since white sugar has a single nutritional value, feeding it to bee colonies can only solve the problem of an emergency. It should not be fed for a long time, as it will easily lead to the deterioration of the bees' physical condition. It is best to add an appropriate amount of honey to the white sugar water to make the nutrition more balanced. Beekeepers can feed white sugar as long as it meets the national standard of first-grade white sugar. Quality is the first priority, and trademark is only secondary.