Bees and Sweets

Ever noticed bees in a sweet shop? Ever wondered what are they doing there?  Aren't they supposed to collect honey from flower to flower? Then what are they doing in the sweet shop then? 

Well, to put it simply, the bees are in the sweet shop to get sugar! Honey bees mainly store honey in the hive for food of the colony during winter and for the time when nectar-secreting flowers are rare to find. Honey bees are attracted to sugar as it is the carbohydrate they use to produce honey.

Honey is considered to be an added sugar. It contains most of the beneficial nutrients and antioxidants. Bees store honey as food for the colony. When honey is collected from the hive there is a high chance for the colony to die as it is their source of staying alive during winter. For this reason bees keep searching for plants that produce nectar so that they can have enough food stored. But now-a-days trees are cut down at such a huge number that it is quite difficult for the bees to find nectar-secreting plants. As a result, bees choose the alternative to nectar, which is white sugar or crystalline sucrose.

Figure 1:  Bees on dry white sugar

Even the beekeepers feed bees sugar!

They place dry white sugar or sugar syrup in a frame or division that is placed under the hive lid, in the top frame. Bees are fond of sugar and always choose the sweetest flower and nectar available. They can smell traces of sweetness even in mid flight. For this sometimes they even follow humans around as sweat smells sweet to them. Their antennae helps them detect sweet flavors as they fly.  

Bees and wasps prefer a water-to-sugar ratio of 2:1. If bees are given dry white sugar they will use water outside the hive or the condensation from inside the hive. Most of the time when food storage of the bees is low and the colony is weak, they are incapable of gathering sufficient water to dissolve sugar crystals into liquid. For this reason, many beekeepers feed sugar syrup to honeybees to help them survive. Bees need this sweetened water to live when availability of food from floral sources is limited, they are in need of feeding. Feeding encourages the bees to supplement honey stores, encourages drawing of comb foundation and encourages the queen to lay brood in order that there are more workers to gather nectar when the flowers are in full bloom. 

Figure 2:  Bees on sweets

So what can we do to save these bees?

Colonies can be kept alive for long periods by moving bees to an area where nectar is found easily or by feeding white sugar to the bees. As plants that produce nectar are not always available honey bees go for the alternative and consume sugar or sugar syrup. But honey bees should not consume white sugar while nectar-secreting flowers are available. Honey is actually the winter food stores made by honey bees. Honey is therefore needed to supply the colony with its nutritional requirements throughout the winter. So, to save their colony from dying when food is unavailable honey bees consume sugar and are found in sweet shops.