In times of nectar shortage, food supplementation using "inverted sugar" obtained by sucrose hydrolysis in an acid environment by heating can be supplied to the hive, forming a glucose and fructose mixture. The acid usually used in such a reaction is the citric acid, however, due to the difficulty that small producers have to obtain the product commercially, an alternative would be to replace it with lemon juice. The objective of this work was to quantify the inversion of sucrose present in Apis mellifera worker diets by employing commercial citric acid and lemon juice. A total of 21 aqueous solutions of granulated sugar at the proportion of 100 g/100 mL were prepared, placing in each one 1.0; 2.0; 3.0; 5.0; 10.0; 15.0 or 20.0 mL of the juices of the Galego [Citrus aurantifolia (C.) Swingle], Tahiti [Citrus latifolia Tanaka] or Cravo [Citrus limonia (L.) Osbeck] lemon varieties. In addition to those, six other aqueous sucrose solutions were prepared by adding 0.0 (control); 0.16; 0.3; 0.5 and 0.7 g citric acid. Sucrose inversion was quantified by using the Somogyi-Nelson method. For the Cravo lemon, the lowest inversion rate was found. Regarding the addition of citric acid, it was estimated that in placing 0.1 g, the inversion was of 12.2% while with 0.16 g, an inversion of 18.8% sucrose present in the solution. The maximum amount of citric acid to be added was estimated to be 0.18 g, adopting as a criterion the mean pH of 3.3 in Africanized bee honey. If Galego, Tahiti and Cravo lemon juices are used as replacements for the citric acid, the maximum added amount should be 2.1, 3.6 and 5.3 mL, respectively, for each 100 g sugar/100 mL water, at fixed pH of 3.3. Considering the inversion rate and pH level recommended for the use of citric acid, Tahiti lemon juice provides better results.
Citrus; sugar; bee; food
