January, 1921 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



23 



Now, do you get the situation clearly? 

 Dextrose, our No. 4 sugar, is sometimes 

 known as grape sugar, and sometimes as 

 glucose. But don't confuse it with commer- 

 cial "glucose" or corn syrup, which has 

 maltose and other constituents in it as well 

 as dextrose. 



Levulose, our No. 5 sugar, also has a few 

 claims to distinction. I told you that it was 

 found in honey. It is found in fruits as well. 

 It is found in so many fruits, in fact, that 

 some busybody decided to give it a new 

 name, fructose. Eemember that our No. 5 

 sugar, levulose, is also called fructose. Here 

 is an interesting thing about levulose; it is 

 the sweetest of the five sugars. It is fortu- 

 nate for us that this is true, for if it were 

 not for the levulose in honey, our favorite 

 sweet would hardly deserve to be called a 

 "sweet," as dextrose, the other honey 

 sugar, is not very sweet. I would like to let 

 each of you have some levulose for sweet- 

 ening your coffee; but, at last quotation, the 

 stuff cost $50.00 a pound, and — well, I keep 

 my supply in the safe. 



Some Secrets of the Sugars. 

 I hope that you have not forgotten our 

 five sugars. They constitute an interesting 

 family, and furthermore, a chemist can tell 

 you a few family secrets. Suppose, for in- 

 stance, that we found two particles of dex- 

 trose — I said particles of dextrose, but I 

 would like to say molecules of dextrose. A 

 molecule is merely an extremely minute 

 particle, you know. A molecule of sugar 

 is the smallest possible unit that you can 

 get and still have the sugar. If you try 

 to go farther yet and break the molecule 

 into pieces you get not sugar, but car- 

 bon, hydrogen, and oxygen. But I am 

 disgressing. You know what a molecule is, 

 I am sure, and, as I was saying, suppose we 

 lirive found two molecules of dextrose in 

 combination. What would we call the pair? 

 Would we say that we had two molecules 

 of dextrose? Not by any means; we would 

 call the pair one molecule of maltose. Malt- 

 ose? Why that is our No. 3 sugar! Do you 

 see the point? The combination of two 

 molecules of dextrose is called maltose. 

 Suppose I had some maltose and wanted 

 some dextrose. Could I split the maltose 

 molecules in two, and have dextrose? Cer- 

 tainly; I will tell you how in a minute. But 

 let me first make this matter of the union 

 of the molecules a little clearer. Forget 

 chemistry for a minute and imagine your- 

 self in your apiary. You have before you 

 two single-story hives. You want instead 

 one double-story hive. Now, of course, you 

 simply place one hive-body on top of the 

 other. But when you get done you have an 

 extra cover, do you not? In the same way 

 when two molecules of sugar are united 

 there is left over an "extra cover," so to 

 speak. When two molecules of dextrose unite 

 to form one molecule of maltose, this ' ' extra 

 cover" is a molecule of water.. And when 



we split the maltose molecule apart again 

 we must give back this extra molecule of 

 water or the whole business will fly to 

 pieces. I am sure you understand — clumsy 

 as has been my explanation. Now we can go 

 a step farther — a beekeeper doesn't always 

 stop with a two-story hive, and neither do 

 we have to stop with two molecules of dex- 

 trose. Let us suppose we have not two but 

 two hundred molecules of dextrose in com- 

 bination. What would we call this conglom- 

 eration? We would call it starch, cornstarch, 

 potato starch, or almost any kind of starch. 

 Did you know before that starch is a mere 

 conglomeration of dextrose molecules? Now 

 could we break up one of these giant starch 

 conglomerates? Yes, we can do it, and let 

 me tell you how to go about it. Take some 

 starch, boil it up with water to make a thick 

 paste, and then add a trace of acid. The 

 acid "coaxes" the conglomerate of dextrose 

 molecules to fall apart, so we call it a 

 ' ' coaxer. ' ' The chemist would call it a 

 catalyst. Now when we have boiled our 

 starch paste for an hour or more with this 

 trace of acid, we find that it has changed 

 considerably — it has become sweet. The big 

 conglomerate of dextrose molecules has 

 broken down, but not completely. There are 

 still some small groups unbroken. Here we 

 find a bunch of about 40 dextrose molecules 

 still hanging together. What is it called? 

 It is not starch, and it is not dextrose, but 

 we may call it dextrine. Dextrine is the 

 gummy substances on the back of postage 

 stamps. 



What Relation Is Commercial Glucose? 



About half of the original starch is left 

 as dextrine; the remainder has broken down 

 farther, and so we find a number of groups 

 of two dextrose molecules, this being the 

 maltose. The rest has gone completely to 

 single molecules, and is dextrose. Thus we 

 have a mixture of about one-half dextrine, 

 one-fourth maltose, and one-fourth dextrose. 

 What shall we call this product? It is none 

 other than our former acquaintance, com- 

 mercial "glucose," or corn syrup. Did you 

 think that corn syrup as made is a concen- 

 trated extract of the sweetness of the corn- 

 stalk? Banish the idea. Corn syrup is made 

 from' starch, usually cornstarch, and that is 

 the only reason it is called corn syrup. Po- 

 tato starch would do as well. 



Now why is it that commercial corn syrup 

 or glucose is impossible as a bee-feed? Sim- 

 ply because of the dextrine, the gummy sub- 

 stance, which is in it. Bees cannot digest 

 dextrine. This also explains why honeydew 

 honeys are poor for wintering — they con- 

 tain rather large amounts of dextrine, while 

 normal honey has less than one per cent. 

 Note that I did not condemn dextrine as a 

 food for human beings; dextrine is per- 

 fectly good food for us. And thus on these 

 grounds, we cannot condemn corn syrup or 

 glucose as a food product. I do not say that 

 corn syrup is a perfect food, but I see iio 



