Alan said:
> heather honey is ok as a winter feed but only for bees which have
> gathered heather in the autumn and gradually become used to it. In this
> special case honey seems to be not better than sugar.
> Has any other heather area beekeepers noticed this?

We usually take bees to the heather in Yorkshire, having missed only 2 years
in the last 20 (one when there was Foot & Mouth and nobody wanted you on
their land).

Although the crop is variable, colonies always feed themselves well for
winter and rarely need much extra feed - perhaps 5-6lbs of fondant.

Wintering has been excellent, except for one year, and in the spring we can
always tell the heather colonies - they are the strongest.  This probably
due to several factors: the late flush of young bees due to the heather
flow, the loss of the old foragers (possibly carrying disease) on the
heather and the protein rich stores which are then used for brood rearing in
the following spring.

However, my understanding is that heather honey contains much more pollen
than other honey and can lead to severe problems during the winter if the
bees are unable to fly; fortunately, in this area, we usually have regular
open days during the winter so this is not a usually a problem - our one bad
year was when the bees were unable to fly for many weeks.

Peter Edwards
(very happy that he moved his bees to the heather last weekend and that it
has been wonderful weather ever since - 31C here today - and the fridge is
full of cold beer!)
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www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/

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