If you were to mix bleach with vinegar and sugar, the would react with the organic matter in a short time to produce water, possibly CO2, and salt. I don't think the product would be stable on the shelf.

The only possible reason I can think of to put any sort of bleach (and there are different ones, like the 'color safe bleach' which I think is hypobromate) into such a product might be to kill bacteria in the water so it doesn't go anaerobic. But it seems like it would also kill the tree.

Where did you read this? Reliable source?

EDIT: found this by Google...

http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryhowtoguide/ht/treepreserve.htm

It does indeed say sugar, vinegar and bleach. 4 tsp bleach in a gallon of water isn't much. And I still think it's going to react away pretty fast.

This post was edited by toxcrusadr on Fri, Jul 11, 14 at 11:14

I posted the link later, due to a browers error, I lost my post, for a while. Kill bacteria, I think is the right answer in fact.

4 teaspoons of bleach in more than a gallon of mixture. That really isn't much at all. It will quickly break down into sodium chloride, and many hard waters contain some sodium chloride anyway.