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 The Pollination Scene: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html The Pollination Home Page: http://www.pollinator.com Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop (Varietal Honeys and Beeswax Candles) http://users.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm