Chuck asked: "Interesting. I'm wondering if, by feeding on the sugar
water, they end
up shortchanging themselves nutritionally by not getting nectar and pollen."
No need to worry. Nectar in the plant flower is a thin solution of
sucrose. A bee gathering nectar sips it through
its long proboscis and back into its "honey stomach," an enlarged portion
of the gut at the end of its pharynx. Here it adds an enzyme
that breaks the disaccharide bond of the sucrose molecule, changing the
sucrose into two simple sugars, dextrose and levulose (aka glucose and
fructose). Back at the hive it passes the drop of nectar to a younger bee
who then deposits it into one of the wax cells. Back a few decades ago
when I had 600+ colonies of honeybees, I would take a frame out of a hive,
turn it on its side, and give it a quick "down-up" movement. If the bees
were bringing in nectar, one would see "shake out," literally scores of
droplets shaking out of the cells of the comb.
Those single droplets of nectar add up, given 20-30,000 foraging field
bees on a nice day with nectar in the flowers. Many beekeepers, myself
included, will put a bee hive on a platform scale and watch the
hive's weight gain per day. Six to eight pounds a day is OK; ten to
twelve is very good. One day during the July basswood flow I had a hive
gain an astonishing thirty-seven pounds in a single day. When I came into
the bee yard to check the scale colony at dusk, the bees were still flying
out in great numbers, presumably able to gather basswood nectar and return
to the hive mainly by smell. That was one day in twenty-five years of
beekeeping that I'll never forget. It was amazing. I've seen
millions--millions--of honeybees; and I've never once become tired of
watching them or lost a trace of simple amazement and wonder at what they
do. They are astonishing creatures.
And bees either gather nectar or pollen on a trip, never both. No one
is shortchanged.
Dean
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|