I guess I've opened a can of worms. But, Hey Guys! I'm a worm farmer!
Ba-Dum! Chishhh!Yeah, we're splitting hairs, a long chain protein.
Finski Sez:these are enzymes which split proteins
protease
elastase
trypsin
The way I understand it, Proteins supply the Nitrogenous compounds. If any compound which is not toxic or has a metabolic by-product that is toxic is ingested, it would be broken down into it's components and utilised either as a building block or as fuel. An obvious example of toxic proteins would be the venom.
The organism then would line up it's RNA by use of enzymes, to lay out the form the components, the amino acids, would then use to create the new compounds in the system. I would imagine since reducing the molecule to it's simplest forms then reassembling them would be unnecessary and waste energy, that the chunks of the molecule would then be assembled into the finished product.
If you eat something you get off the shelf, read the ingredients and see "Natural flavoring." You could be eating the original source for that food or something from the strangest source you can imagine. By law "Natural" simply means it wasn't cooked up in a test tube. "Organic" however means it was put together the old-fashioned way, hard work, and love.
So my question is not, "Would this work better than the real McCoy?" Rather, "Why wouldn't this work?" My first impression is the sweetners would break down to toxins. The unused Proteins would simply be used for fuel or excreted. I have an image in my mind of the Wheat glutens giving the bees chewing fits and gas. I suppose if Humans had developed a taste for pollen, it would be an industry and the source for our protein, not to mention the focus of our food breeding programs.
Rdy, Thank you! I've been working on this from the perspective of "Bootstrap Business." It's true enough that I'm working 3 colonies right now, and buying ingredients in bulk would be pointless. Collecting pollen would be better, but we had a dearth this summer, and little or nothing the last few months. I'm still more concerned with making bees rather than Honey. I was thinking Canola oil, but Safflower and Corn sounds good.
Keep the good info coming folks! Synthesis Reconciles!