Are agrochemicals present in High Fructose Corn Syrup fed to honey bees (Apis meiiifera L.)?

摘要

Honey bees meet all of their nutritional requirements by consuming nectar and pollen. In managed colonies, beekeepers often feed pollen and nectar substitutes when flowering plants are unavailable. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is often fed as a nectar substitute. In the autumn, HFCS is fed to increase food reserves for overwintering and in the spring to stimulate brood rearing (Ruiz-Matute, 2010).HFCS is produced from com starch using enzyme technology. Corn starch is hydrolysed with R-amylase to form eight glucose unit maltooligosaccharides. A second enzyme, amyloglucosidase cleaves the maltooligosaccharides into liquefied glucose. A third enzyme, glucose isomerase, converts the glucose to fructose (see refs in LeBlanc etai., 2009).