L ike other animals, honey bees need carbohydrates as an energy source. All carbohydrates are first converted to glucose, which enters the Krebs cycle and produces ATP, the fuel in nearly all cells, and carbon dioxide and water as by-products. Aside from being used as an energy source, glucose can also be converted to body fats and stored. A worker bee needs 11 mg of dry sugar each day (Huang et al., 1998). This translates to about 22 ul of 50% sugar syrup per worker per day. A colony with 50,000 bees therefore needs 1.1 liter (about 2 pounds) of 50% sugar syrup per day (about half a gallon of nectar at 25% sugar concentration), which does not include brood rearing and other activities. A colony of this size therefore will consume almost 700 pounds of nectar per year, assuming the nectars have a 50% sugar concentration! Of course, consumption is lower during winter when temperature is not regulated at 35C, but perhaps that cancels out the brood rearing and flight activities.
As we initiate the ninth year of "The Other Side of Bekeeping" we continue our custom of dedicating the January column to looking back at the previous year This practice not only forces us to look rat our bee forage research in overview but also allows our readers to know where we have progressed in that research as well. Our intention is to leave a trail of our sucesses and failures for those who follow as well as to stimulate readers to initiate their own research projects.
