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Honey is truly a product made for hard times (overwintering) and is less preferable to use in colony build up than the more-watery floral nectar (you can also stimulate buildup with a 1.5:1 sugar to water sugar syrup ratio). The adults can process it ok, but they must add water back to it to make the beebread they use to feed their brood, thus they will more readily use unripened nectar for brood purposes. As a beekeeper, it is interesting to note that bees are actually stimulated to increase broodnest size when nectar is added to a hive and not honey! Honey, being as dry as it is (<19% water), is actually hard for the bees to use in broodrearing. Bees use invertase to break the bonds apart to render fructose and glucose (this is a very abridged version of the process as it has been some time since I’ve refreshed this information by rereading the processes). Sucrose (made of the monosaccharides: glucose and fructose, right?) is the primary choice people have when choosing most true nectars and granular sugars derived from cane or beets. “Polysaccharide” may be outdated or just a lazy term. But when the solutions are more concentrated, the disaccharide sucrose performs equally well. Lasius niger displays a marked preference for the complex trisaccharides raffinose and melezitose when prepared in dilute concentrations, and is far less receptive to xylose, glucose, and fructose. I've read a lot of papers on sugar preferences in ants, but have never come across any literature related to the absorption and digestion of monosaccharides versus oligosaccharides, probably because it would be of limited practical use. Variety is the spice of life, right?!Īs far as I can tell, you're correct on all points (except perhaps the use of the term polysaccharides?). At any rate, I wouldn’t be so afraid of honey. I don’t know what sort of benefit this provides for bees or ants, or even if it provides benefit at all (after all, honey is for overwintering purposes precisely because there is no more nectar to collect and honey won’t spoil during the dearth). Generally, monosaccharides are more readily converted to energy in animal metabolic processes. In part of the process of “ripening” nectar into honey, bees add an enzyme called invertase to break those polysaccharides into monosaccharides. Floral nectar is generally made up of polysaccharides. I definitely would not leave honey water in anything past two or three days because it certainly can and will ferment. They are taking advantage of the heat the bees produce, but are also very quick to clean up any spilled honey after breaking into the hives. I commonly find Brachymyrmex, Crematogaster, and Camponotus colonies nesting in the tops of my beehives every year. But I still don't believe there is any advantage to feeding honey over other sugary liquids. The fermentation issue is typically only a problem with larger liquid feeders where the liquid doesn't need to be replaced as regularly. The microorganisms produce gas through fermentation, causing many types of liquid feeders to leak as the gas builds up pressure in the feeder. Honey is often loaded with natural contaminants, including microorganisms that readily multiply after honey is mixed with water.Pure honey has very little water, so it may create a water imbalance inside the ants.Pure honey is very thick and viscous, so many ants can have a difficult time consuming it.

While it ultimately comes down to personal preference, honey simply doesn't have any advantages over sugar water or ant nectar, while it does have lots of downsides: The only issue I did have was the honey mixture made a mess, but with proper ant feeders, that problem is gone. Why not use honey? is it just because it ferments? I feed my ants (now in your great ant feeders) honey mixed with water and haven't had any problems yet. If you ever use honey-which I don't advise you do-never mix it with water. Some are pre-mixed, and others are concentrated liquids or powders to be mixed with water.