Using invertase

[Rosie]

Normal Carreck does not post on here but I remember him posting elsewhere some years ago about the difference between beet and cane sugar. He said that scientific tests done (I think in the 40's) showed that bees overwinter on table sugar better than they do on honey and that both types of table sugar gave the same results. Since then I have found that beet sugar dissolves more readily than cane so it's been my preference for feeding ever since although I usually feed whatever is cheapest at the time.

Very illuminating post by Little_John (#7) by the way. I have always wondered where the evidence was that expensive invert sugar is better than table sugar. I was shot down once for daring to question the value of invert sugar after admitting that I was not an expert. I suspect someone feared consequences on their profit margin.

[Little_John]

Rosie - overnight I've realised there may be some misunderstanding in what I wrote earlier. When I said that bees can invert sucrose on their own perfectly well - I was really referring to the digestion process, rather than the storage process.

You see, invertase is present in the cells of just about every living thing: certainly in the cells of mammals, insects, yeasts, and even the mitochondria of plants - rice being a good example. Providing the organism can get the sucrose into it's body's cells somehow, it will then be metabolised thus:



However, honeybees - on their way back to the hive - have the ability to add invertase to the nectar they have collected in their 'nectar sac' - but this isn't going down the full metabolic route into the Kreb's Cycle, and so forth, like the digested sucrose does - it stays in the sac, only proceeding to the point of inversion:



The rest you probably know well enough: the nectar is regurgitated, more invertase is added by the saliva of worker bees as they begin to store and dehydrate the nectar, and thus honey is formed.

So in the honeybee there are two completely separate mechanisms at work as to how the invertase is being deployed. But interestingly, sometimes these can 'join forces', as it were, for if a honeybee unexpectedly finds itself short of energy on the flight back to the hive, a valve between the nectar sac and the ventriculus opens allowing nectar to pass into the stomach, where digestive invertase plays it's rather more universal role towards the releasing of energy from the complex sugars found in nectar.

Hope this clarifies my earlier comment.

LJ

[Rosie]

Thanks LJ. Presumably the reason for the first stage in their honey sac and subsequent handling is so that they can concentrate the sugars more without them crystallising in storage. If so I wonder how they get away with storing high percentage sucrose after feeding with table sugar.

[rogerb]

Very interesting and informative discourse Little_John, many thanks.

[sbamember2014]

Boiling sugar, using cream of tartar, vinegar and lemon juice all seem to have problems.
There must be an optimum temperature for invertase to work (sucrase the animal enzyme, works best around 40 degrees C). The theory behind using invertase, besides being natural, is that the bee does not have to provide this heat energy to invert sucrose if the break-down products are offered.
How to analyse the results (in terms of the inversion) I do not know at this time.

John B

[rogerb]

55 to 60 degees C is best, the invertase reaction is exothermic so actually it will warm the bees whilst they do it.

[EK.Bee]

Would there be a concern over reheating the syrup to 114 deg for 20 minutes & the additional HMFs that would result ?
I take it this is how the commercial stuff is concocted.
As a beginner a couple of people have been telling me horror stories about invert syrup despatching colonies
Does anyone know if Apisuc etc test the produce for HMF levels before it is released for sale?

[The Drone Ranger]

Thought I might resurrect this this thread as most people will have been feeding recently and I read this quite amusing web page
Quite sensibly it argues only reason for buying inverted syrup is to save making sugar syrup and its slightly more saturated
Other than that it's just an expensive cleverly marketed white elephant it seems
http://www.bbka.org.uk/local/slough-...en-jones.shtml

Incidentally the NBU implies the same in their feeding guide
http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/downloadNews.cfm?id=121

Personally I can't afford (or perhaps grudge paying) it so I was glad the sugar price was so low this year and spent September stirring away

The 2:1 sugar/water causes confusion every year because it was established using 2 pounds sugar and 1 pint water which unlike metric units are not related in weight
So transferring this as a ratio of 2 Kg sugar to 1 ltr of water doesn't work, and although by using very hot water the sugar will dissolve, the solution is over saturation at lower temperatures and crystals form which block your contact feeder

If you are using 5Kg bags then a good way to remember the ratio is 5kg to 3.142 ltr (5 pi) thats how I remember it anyway
Ours are all wrapped up snug and cosy now
Varroa treatment next stop

[Honeybunch]

This is a beautifully clear presentation. Thank you for going to so much trouble, Little John

[Calluna4u]

Thought I might resurrect this this thread as most people will have been feeding recently and I read this quite amusing web page
Quite sensibly it argues only reason for buying inverted syrup is to save making sugar syrup and its slightly more saturated
Other than that it's just an expensive cleverly marketed white elephant it seems
http://www.bbka.org.uk/local/slough-...en-jones.shtml

Incidentally the NBU implies the same in their feeding guide
http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/downloadNews.cfm?id=121

Personally I can't afford (or perhaps grudge paying) it so I was glad the sugar price was so low this year and spent September stirring away

Can of worms there indeed.

First point is the price. When it leaves the plant where it is produced it leaves at a very reasonable price. The problem is multi level marketing. Many margins tween producer and consumer. (All main brands do it enzymatically btw as its cheaper to do it that way. Rumours of 50yo outmoded acid inversion and high temps etc are just negative marketing largely originating with one supplier). More than one person on here knows the real price, delivered, as they come here to get it from me.
Don't even go there if you are suggesting I am promoting the product for profit because that is nonsense. I only supply it to friends and a few others who come here basically at cost. I do not like seeing people being overcharged any more than you do.

Way back when we first experimented with invert syrups it was very clear from the way the bees reacted to them that these were superior products to plain sugar syrup.

If you are happy to have to mix all your syrup, have to finish feeding early, have untaken syrup ferment, and all to favour a home made product that we have proven internally to be less good, then fine.

Personally I prefer the following:-

Plump fit looking bees with a gloss of health about them going into winter.
A syrup that can lie unused in the feeder with no biological activity going on in it and the bees can take it, without water content or ripening issues, any open day in winter (must post some pics of bees taking syrup from a hive top Ashforth feeder on NYD 2015).
No waste.
No extra labour. (Yesterday the tanker was here. 25 tonnes ready in tanks to go out in 40 minutes.)
Can be retained in bulk almost indefinitely for use when needed.
Clusters noticeably cleaner in winter. Dysentry is a thing of the past. ( Doubtful? You are welcome to come and see for yourself.)
Lower cost. (yes, take all costs and wastage into consideration and it works out marginally cheaper.......hasten to add that is not true at some of the exorbitant retail price points I have seen)

I really do not care what the odd spurious paper says. Many of these originate from someone wanting to prove a point or generate something semi scientific to support their OPINION. Too much opinion and too few facts dominate in our trade/craft. We have proven it to our own satisfaction in side by side tests, using various brands of invert syrup, home made syrup, and leaving their own honey, and would not go back to home made syrup, even if it WERE significantly cheaper.

All the leading brands are excellent products and any negative marketing against some of them should be ignored, in particular the yeasts and moulds data offered by a UK vendor of one product, as even the worst of those is less than 1% of the levels in honey, so is just an artificially created point of difference. Api-invert, Ambrosia, InvertBee. All are superb sugar derived products and your bees will respond well to their use. If pressed which is best I would suggest they are almost identical in performance but if they were all available at my gate at the same price I would possibly choose Api invert. However the differences are so minor that it comes down to price between the three. Apisuc is a cereal derived product that we found no performance difference with, but due to the very reasonable price of the sugar derived products right now there is no need to take Apisuc.

(old post from EK Bee asks about Hmf.....so far as I know all batches are tested for hmf......and you get a batch specific lab certificate supplied...if required...with every tankerload. Reference samples drawn from the bulk in also taken at discharge and sealed, one goes back to the production plant, the other stays with us. I could feed a few hives with all the little sample tubs I have here! I queried one load of Apisuc and one of Ambrosia over the years due to yellow colour on arrival, but the lab tests came back fine, specific worry was hmf but the reading was tiny, like fresh honey)

Some poorer grade syrups for feeding bees do exist. None are currently marketed in the UK as far as I know. At one place in Spain, and another in Belgium, I saw a blended syrup being produced. Mixing normal sugar syrup with invert syrup. Not seen these blends sold here, but they were very cost effective ptions, being mid way between invert and white sugar in price (by dry weight).