Ants ate white refined sugar crystals and rejected the brown sugar crystals why?

Question

My house's ants ate the white refined sugar i put for them as an experiment but stayed away from brown sugar crystals which i consider more natural and complete... They ate the honey and stayed away of the natural sugarcane molasses..any explantion?

Is it the same for bees ? is there any myrmecology expert arround to answer the question?

Answer 1

Honey and refined sugar and do not have additives which may be present in brown sugar or molasses (see below).  Ants are connoisseurs of sugars.

From Wikipedia:

"Natural brown sugar is a name for raw sugar which is a brown sugar produced from the first crystallisation of the sugar cane. As such "natural brown sugar" is free of additional dyes and chemicals. There is more molasses in brown sugar, giving it a higher mineral content. Some natural brown sugars have particular names and characteristics, and are sold as: Demerara or Muscovado."

"Many brown sugar producers produce brown sugar by adding cane molasses to completely refined white sugar crystals in order to more carefully control the ratio of molasses to sugar crystals and to reduce manufacturing costs. This also allows the production of brown sugars to be based predominantly on beet sugar. Brown sugar prepared in this manner is often much coarser than its unrefined equivalent and its molasses may be easily separated from the crystals by simple washing to reveal the underlying white sugar crystals; with unrefined brown there is inclusion of molasses within the crystal which will appear off-white if washed. This is mainly done for inventory control and convenience."