Dextrose Monohydrate

[ralittlefield]

A member of the bee club I attend has access to some dextrose monohydrate and asked if it is suitable as feed for his bees.  From what I have been able to find out, it is made from starch, which bees can not digest, so I would not use it.  Is anyone here familiar with it?  Can it be safely fed to bees?

[Jeanette]

I had a hunt on the internet and found these bits of info...

Dextrose Monohydrate is a white crystalline powdered sugar obtained from the complete hydrolysis of corn/maize starch. http://www.afis.com.au/products/food-ingredients/dextrose-monohydrate-8-0040/

In its pure form, it has a dextrose equivalency (DE) of 100, which indicates that it's 100% pure Dextrose, not a mixture with other substances as well. http://www.cooperativepurchasers.com/Ingredients/Dextrose/What-Is-Dextrose-Monohydrate.html

Dextrose is apparently another name for glucose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose

A scientific study was done that reported ... Adult bees can utilize glucose, fructose, sucrose, trehalose, maltose, and melezitose, but bees are unable to digest rhaminose, xylose, arabinose, galactose, mannose, lactose, raffinose, melibiose or stachyose.  'Honey Bee Nutrition' (Jointly published in the American Bee Journal and in Bee Culture, August 2010, Zachary Huang, Michigan State University). I cannot find the original report, but the cached version is at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:79JeWQkvOcMJ:www.beeccdcap.uga.edu/documents/CAPArticle10.html+bees+digest+sugar&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

I cannot claim any personal knowledge or experience with feeding Dextrose Monohydrate to bees, but I thought you might like to read what I found on the web.

[Finski]

.
If you use normal sugar, it is very handy.

When you carry special stuff with you car, it will be surely more expencive than sugar.