Beekeepers typically provide solid sugar as an emergency food source during Winter. This can be achieved by mixing equal parts of granulated and liquid sugar (weight or volume does not matter), heating it, and then serving.
Researchers have investigated different diets such as soybean flour, brewer’s yeast, parched gram and guar meal as alternatives to pollen in order to increase colony growth and queen reproduction. Some of these diets have proven their worth through tests conducted on colonies using them.
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Pollen
Pollen is the primary source of protein and fat for honey bee larvae and adults alike, providing nutrition during brood development and maintaining their hive. Honey bees don’t rely on other insects for protein source nor store fat like wasps and hornets do; thus ensuring a steady supply of pollen throughout summer is critical to their colony survival.
Bee pollen provides our bodies with all of the essential amino acids and fatty acids it requires, making it a complete food. Furthermore, it’s an excellent source of vitamins and minerals such as Vitamin C, Thiamine Riboflavin Vitamin B6 Biotin Magnesium.
Honey
Honey is an indigestible liquid food source for bees. Honey bees create it from plant sugary secretions such as floral nectar or insect dew such as aphid honeydew; then refine these ingredients using regurgitation, enzymatic activity, water evaporation to concentrate the sugars further.
Bees gather pollen from flowers using special body hairs called setae and transfer it to special areas on their hind legs known as pollen baskets, before returning home carrying bright yellow or greenish balls of pollen which feed young bee brood.
Researchers are learning an enormous amount about the health-enhancing properties of honey. One study, for instance, revealed that when sick honey bees were offered four different varieties of honey with high antioxidant levels – they chose sunflower honey over all others! Furthermore, other research indicates honey’s antimicrobial and cancer prevention properties; researchers can even use honey as an antibacterial treatment!
Carbohydrates
Honey bees get all their carbohydrates from nectar and stored honey, in addition to pollen for proteins, lipids, vitamins, and minerals, collected through foraging bees or supplied via hive feeding.
Bees gather their liquid food sources by mixing it with an enzyme called invertase in their saliva, which then transforms sucrose’s simple sugars (monosaccharides) into glucose and fructose while simultaneously decreasing its water content from 80-95% down to around 17%.
Honey is used both in cooking and as a sweetener due to its high fructose content, which makes it more desirable than table sugar. Beekeepers feed their bees high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) when field nectar supplies become scarce as a way of increasing brood production and fortifying food reserves for overwintering colonies; unfortunately HFCS contains compounds which are toxic to honey bees in higher concentrations and thus isn’t an adequate replacement for real honey (real honey only!).
Proteins
Honey bees rely heavily on proteins throughout their life stages (egg, larva, pupa and adult) for gland development and brood rearing purposes. Proteins also provide significant energy sources and amino acids.
Researchers have acknowledged the need for protein supplements to promote honey bee health; however, estimates of vitamins and detailed accounts of carbohydrates specific to honey bees at various developmental stages are largely unexplored.
Mass spectrography was used to compare protein profiles of sucrose solution-based honey-like products produced by worker bees with pure polyfloral honey, regardless of feeding regime or frequency of collection. Bands observed on eight percent sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gels were indicative of major royal jelly proteins such as (MRJP 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7, alpha-glucosidase and glucose oxidase). These findings demonstrate that adding proteins from an external source doesn’t significantly alter their protein contents within honey-like products.
