[cityboy]

Is sugar water used as an immediate food source only, or is it converted to honey as well? Mike

 

[bjerm2]

Sugar water is used to help the bees to
1. Draw comb, (one sugar to one water volume or weight) 2. Stimulate brood production, (one sugar to two water volume or weight)3. Fend off starvation, (two sugar to one water) 4. Help to top off winter supplies (again 2 sugar to one water).
No it does not go into honey. You have to be careful, sugar is sugar honey is nectar from flowers. You should not mix the two if your going to extract. It will not be honey but a mix.
Dan

 

[dickm]

I hesitate to contradict. Oh to hell with it! Sugar water is sucrose just like nectar. The bees add invertase and other bug juice turning it into glucose and fructose. This is what we call honey. It may be absent the enzymes that give it flavor, but I think it's still honey. Where am I wrong?

Dickm

 

[Michael Bush]

From a "bee" point of view it is honey. They convert the sucrose, they store it in honey storage cells.

But from a marketing point of view it's considered fraud to call it honey because honey is made from nectar which has a lot of other flavors and small amounts of other things that the sugar water does not.

Sugar water honey is very tasteless too.