Thanks Scott. "Former" chemist, eh? "Tweeters" knows no bounds when it
comes to so much knowledgeable talent from all walks of life. Very
impressive.

As per Connie Bickerton's contribution:
[ "Sugar dissolved by boiling water had different chemical properties than
sugar that is dissolved in cold water and never boiled.

When you create sugar syrup by boiling water, the hot water inverts the
sugar - some of the sucrose becomes glucose and fructose. The Inverted sugar
tastes up to 20% sweeter than the non-inverted sugar.

http://www.csiro.au/resources/sweeter-sugar-activity.html

While I don't know what this means to hummingbird nutrition, there is a
chemical difference between dissolving the sugar in cold water vs boiling
water.

Other resources:
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_sugar_syrup_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_sugar_syrup) " ]

That's very interesting as well. Thanks for the research angle. My only
comment or clarification is that I am not actually boiling a sugar-water
mixture, rather heat a tea pot of water until the pot 'whistles' (a boil, I
presume), then pour it into the pyrex cup containing the sugar, then stir.
This may or may not be the same thing that might create a "syrup" but the
end product certainly doesn't look syrupy.


Richard Rowlett
Bellevue (Eastgate), WA

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In a message dated 8/27/2009, Scott Ramos writes:

Sugar in a 4:1 solution will depress the freezing point of water by
about 2.6 F, a 3:1 solution by about 3.5 F.

Scott Ramos
Seattle
(former chemist)


Pterodroma at aol.com wrote:
> So, my question is if a 4:1 solution starts to freeze at around 27F,
> at what temperature might it start freezing up at a 3:1 ratio? Maybe
> the same resulting in an even richer mixture in the bottom?