Did you know that bees produce honey when they eat white sugar?

Bees are typical omnivorous insects and completely feed on flowers, in the season of abundant nectar source worker bees will collect a large amount of pollen and nectar, part of which nectar will also be brewed into honey reserves in the hive, honey source is scarce or not easy to collect when the bee colony will live on the honey reserves, let's take a look at whether bees will produce honey when they eat sugar!

1. Definition of honey

Honey is made by bees collecting plant nectar and brewing it repeatedly, from the definition to be called honey, it must meet two conditions, one is that the raw material for honey must be the nectar secreted by the plant nectar glands, and the other must be completely brewed and matured by bees, so it is not real honey made by artificial feeding sugar, and it is not real honey obtained by artificially concentrating immature honey.

2. Artificial feeding

For example, beekeepers will supplement a large amount of feed to the colony before the overwintering period to ensure safe wintering, and beekeepers will also promote the rapid reproduction of bee colonies through artificial feeding in early spring, but beekeepers will not feed the bee colonies except in special circumstances during the nectar flow period.

3. Feed sugar to produce honey

White sugar and nectar are food for bees, and bees can also use invertase to convert some of the white sugar into simple sugars, so feeding white sugar to the bee colony can indeed produce honey, but the nutritional value of this honey is very different from real honey.

4. Precautions

1. Bees feeding sugar are not necessarily adulterated, in fact, many times bees also need to be fed artificially, for example, beekeepers should feed a large number of bee colonies before wintering to ensure safe wintering.

2. Although bees feeding sugar can indeed produce honey, the honey produced in this way is very different from real honey, and bees cannot completely convert white sugar into simple sugars.

3. Bees feeding sugar may be producing fake honey, for example, some beekeeping bees are also fed a large amount of white sugar during the honey period, so that the honey production of the bee colony is much higher than the normal honey production.

Honey is produced, but it is far less nutritious than pure honey.

Although bees also use white sugar to make honey, the honey produced after feeding white sugar often cannot be completely converted, and the sucrose content of pure honey is usually higher, while the sucrose content of pure honey is less than 5%.

Feeding white sugar to bees can produce honey, white sugar and nectar are food for bees, and bees can also use invertase to convert part of the white sugar into simple sugar, so feeding white sugar to the bee colony can indeed produce honey, but the nutritional value of this honey is quite different from real honey, and it is not appropriate to feed too much sugar.

Of course, you can, because bees are able to use themselves to convert some of the white sugar into simple sugars that can be used to produce honey.

I know that bees produce honey if they eat white peaches, and this method is often used by beekeepers.

Honey can be produced. Honey is the nectar or secretion of plants collected by bees and brewed thoroughly, but bees also eat sugar.

Feeding honey with white sugar can reduce the time it takes for honey to go out to collect honey, which in turn shortens the brewing time of honey.

The honey produced by feeding white sugar is edible, it does not contain harmful substances to the body, and the honey fed with white sugar is not visible from the appearance, and the taste is similar to pure honey. However, it can be distinguished from the ingredients, and the sucrose in the honey fed with white sugar.

The content is relatively high, and it contains fewer nutrients.

1. Sugar. The honey produced by feeding bees is not real honey;

2. Honey is made by bees collecting plant nectar and brewing it repeatedly, from the definition to be called honey, it must meet two conditions, one is that the raw material for honey must be the nectar secreted by the plant nectar gland, and the other must be completely brewed and matured by bees, so it is not real honey made by artificial feeding sugar, and it is not real honey obtained by artificially concentrating immature honey.

Yes, but less, and it is not recommended.

Honey is the nectar or secretion of bees collecting plants, which is made by fully stuffing orange albums, containing more than 180 kinds of substances, a variety of which can be absorbed by the human body, of course, the main components are grape state macro sugar and fructose, the sucrose content is low at 5%, and the honey sucrose content produced by feeding white sugar may be higher.

1. Look at the gloss and color: real honey is better to look at with light white texture, light yellow or amber, and light light color is better; The gloss is not very translucent. Fake honey is bright in color, boiled with white sugar or passed off with syrup, so it looks very clear and translucent, generally light yellow or dark yellow.

In addition, pure honey is colorless, and the color of honey is caused by the pollen of different plants in honey. Therefore, dark honey is more nutritious than light-colored honey, but dark honey often contains a stronger odor, such as buckwheat honey; Light-colored honey generally smells fragrant, such as lychee honey and locust honey.

2. Identification of impurities: you can use the red-hot wire to insert into the honey, the bubbling is the real honey, the smoking is fake, if it is pure honey, after the wire is pulled out, it is very smooth and does not attach impurities. Pick up honey with chopsticks, which can be pulled into long filaments, keep flowing, and those that will automatically retract when the filaments are broken and are spherical are of the highest grade.

Mix honey and water in a ratio of 1 to 5 and leave it for a day, and it is best to have no sediment.

3. Three water identification: honey drops on white paper, pure honey into beads, will not seep, and water-mixed honey will gradually seep out, the faster the seepage, the more water.

4. Identification of heavy metals: take a tablespoon of honey and add it to a small half cup of strong herbal green tea, if the honey has been polluted by heavy metals, the tannins in the tea will react with the heavy metals in the honey to produce gray or brown and black salts. The darker the color, the greater the degree of heavy metal contamination.

5. Identification of starch: put a small amount of honey into a cup, add an appropriate amount of water to boil, drop a few drops of iodine wine and shake well after cooling, if the solution turns blue or red or purple, it means that the honey is mixed with starchy substances.

It is normal to feed bees some sugar water when there is no nectar in the north in winter, but they are not fed during the flowering period when there are flowers, so as long as the honey produced by bees who have not only eaten white sugar water and have not collected nectar is good.

In fact, there is little chance that beekeepers will cheat with white sugar. First of all, the vast majority of beekeepers are honest and focus on how to raise bees well so that they can produce more bees and honey. Secondly, the maneuverability of feeding bees with sugar water to produce honey is very small, for reason one; When the nectar source is scarce, give the bee syrup, and the honey will convert it into honey; During this period, 70% of the sugar is consumed, which is not suitable for the family.

If it causes bee colonies to steal from each other, it will be a waste of money and labor. Bee colony theft is extremely taboo in beekeeping production. Reason 2; When the bees are fed sugar water during the peak of the nectar source, the bees do not eat it.

What's more, the beekeepers at this time were busy producing real honey.

It is not entirely correct to check whether the drawing wire is crystallized or whether the red wire is smoking, and the color, taste, crystallization or not, and the size of the crystalline particles of honey vary greatly depending on the plant. There are also differences in the taste of honey produced by different honey species in the same region. Therefore, tasting whether there is a sugar taste directly in your mouth is a good way to check whether honey is adulterated with sugar.