Scott L. Wiegel wrote:

> "The differences between honey, sucrose, and high fructose corn syrup
> were not statistically significant for any of these measurements"
>
> This means that given the health of honey bees as your primary
> consideration - there is no statistical difference between HFCS55,
> Honey, and sucrose.

Lots of threads on this in the archives. A British study showed that
sucrose was best, HFCS next, and honey last. But boil the sugar and HFCS
moved up to first.

The difference between sucrose and HFCS (55%) is so little that most
beekeepers will not see a difference with any difference increasing with
the severity of the winter. But even then, there are so many other
variables that, in the real world, you would never notice the difference.

Honey is a different issue since when we speak of HFCS (55) or sucrose
we are at least in the ballpark of talking about the same thing (you can
get into isomers and make it interesting). Honey, however, can be very
different depending on the floral source and level of particulates. So a
"light" clover honey will be an excellent overwintering honey while a
heavy, quick granulating goldenrod/aster honey will be a poor winter feed.

But all this is in relation to northern winters that are long and cold.
Move further south, and just about anything will get you through the winter.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine (where the winters are long and cold)

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