ENVS 2210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Unit, Honey Flow, Maltose

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Environmental Sciences
• Course: ENVS 2210
• Professor: Ernesto Guzman

Document Summary

Unit nine honey production and pre-winter management. Honey: honey is a viscous, saturated sugar solution produced by honey bees from plant nectar. Honey contains simple sugars (mainly glucose and fructose) that do not require additional digestion, as well as proteins (including enzymes), vitamins, minerals and water (not more than 20%). Nectar: nectar is an unsaturated sugar solution produced by flowering plants that contains complex carbohydrates (mainly sucrose). It is collected and processed by bees to transform it into honey. Nectar and honey are used by bees as source of dietary carbohydrates. Honey production: factors influencing storage of a surplus honey crop in hives include abundance of nectar producing plants, suitable weather for honey production and bee foraging, and populated colonies. The process of nectar collection and posterior transformation into honey by bees is as follows: foraging bees collect nectar from flowers and transport it (in their honey crop) to the hive.