In a message dated 2/8/99 8:09:27 AM Eastern Standard Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:
 
>     Can anybody please explain, in detail, what are the advantages of sugar
>  feeding versus the normal natural diluted honey one.
>
>      Isn't this "sugar feeding" a big mistake from the biological, genetical
>  and immunological points of view?
 
   Sorry I can't do it "in detail," because I have not studied the reasons,
but from practical experience of the outcome I can make a generalisation. Bees
do poorly, when fed dilute honey. Apparently reprocessing the honey is a
strain for them.
 
    The best way to feed honey is to give them frames of uncapped honey. If
the hive is near starvation, I rake the cappings a bit, and put the open honey
next to the cluster. Within minutes you can see a hive revive. Of couse we
don't want to ever get our bees down that far; it takes a lot for them to come
back, but it does sometimes happen.
 
    I have never seen any adverse responses in bees fed sugar or corn syrup.
If there are any, the positive reactions outweigh the negative. Bees that are
fed corn syrup early in the spring are roaring strong by the time of the first
flow, and often equivalent to two hives.
 
    Every now and then commercial beekeepers have gotten "deals" on some waste
honey and tried to use it for feed. It just doesn't work, except perhaps to
enable starving bees to survive. They won't thrive.
 
   Others have reported the same effect. I believe Andy Nachbaur has mentioned
this a couple times, as well as some other friends.
 
    These thoughts are weighed without consideration of the possible spread of
disease.
If you purchase honey from an apparently "clean" operation, with no disease,
remember that, once honey is mixed in the tank, any disease that was not
noticed (in one hive) has been spread in the tank to contaminate all that
batch with spores. So this is a good second reason, not to feed back liquid
honey.
 
[log in to unmask]     Dave Green  Hemingway, SC  USA
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