When training bees with sugar water as a reward it is imortant to know whether the bees can sense sugarwater. Is there any opinion or literature about whether bees can see sugarwater, bees can feel the increased humidity caused by the sugarwater, or bees can smell sugarwater?
Klaus
Sucrose has no vapour pressure as freshly made sucrose syrup with distilled water does not produce a sucrose chemical signal (smell). Hamida Mirwan and I have a paper now in press that provides the citations for that issue.
I do not think that sucrose in water would cause any optical signal different from water itself. Fluorescence in nectar is not caused by the sugars but by other constituents.
Rob Raguso has published on the ability of insects to sense water vapour gradients, and honeybees are sensitive to water saturation deficits (a.k.a. humidity). So honeybees may be able to distinguish sugar syrups from water alone because the former would have lesser (not greater, I think) humidity at the surface.
Of course, honeybees can taste sugars in water, just as can we.
Freshly prepared 50% sucrose syrup would be unscented (Schwartz 1955; von Frisch 1967) (sucrose has no vapour pressure (NIOSH 2010) and would not do so in solution (Raoult’s Law))
Schwarz R (1955) Ȕber die Riechschärfe der Honigbiene. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Physiologie, 37 : 180-210
NIOSH (2010). Sucrose. NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health USA. www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/npgd0574.html (accessed 13 February, 2014)
Frisch, K. von (1967). The dance language and orientation of bees. Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA
Mirwan and Kevan is in press in Insectes Sociaux
Will nectar and sugarwater remain scentless when exposed in the field or in the lab for hours? When do volatiles emerge dor to fermentation? There is a growing evidence that microorganism may play a role in modifying nectar; why not also sugarwater if exposed and rapidly colonized?
Density-dependent negative responses by bumblebees to bacteria isolated from flowers. Junker RR, Romeike T, Keller A, Langen D (2014) Apidologie, 45:467-477
Volatile organic compound mediated interactions at the plant-microbe interface. Junker RR, Tholl D (2013) Journal of Chemical Ecology, 39: 810-825
Certainly, once yeasts and other microbes get into nectar, it changes quickly.
You may want to look at some papers that I wrote with Dini Eisikowitch some years ago on this. Carlos Herrera picked up on the idea as well and has published on the subject. There is the interesting paper on the alcoholic mammal in Malaysia that likes fermented nectar.
Peter
I suspect if you use regular table sugar rather than analytical grade pure sucrose, there are enough impurities to create a scent even when it's quite fresh, however.
Given that bees can sense static electrical fields Clarke, D., Whitney, H., Sutton, G. & Robert, D. Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1230883 (2013) and polarised light, could a drop of sugar water also alter static electric patterns and/or reflect light in such a way to alter polarisation patterns, thereby making it detectable via non-olfactory means too?
Do you think that it is possible that the first nectaring flower visitor brings yeasts and bacteria to the nectary and that then within the refilling time of nectar these microorganisms produce scent? This could also be tested with an experimental setup with sugarwater!
I think often the nectary itself/flower petals have yeasts and bacteria on, but it personally wouldn't surprise me if bees and flies and things brought in more. It sounds like a fairly straightforward experiment for a summer student, perhaps - could be nice to see it done!
Klaus Lunau Nikola Kezić do you have any idea?, Widely available ingredients with high source of protein but cheap in price to develop an artificial diet for the honey bee ?
Thank you in advance
Dear Sankar,
are you asking for a nectar or for a pollen surrogate?
Klaus
Yes sir, bees are attracted to sugar solutions, olfactory cues help them to remember and for specific period they are the are volatile. I guess after fertilization these volatile substance may stop
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