The Question about maple sugar vs honey, and the question about 'Maple Honey' gave me an Idea.

I have a photocopy of an old (Turn of the century) beekeeping book that advises the beekeeper to extract the green (Unripened) honey as quickly as the bees can gather it, for as long as the honey flow lasts, then, once the honey flow is over, and the bees are Idle, feeding the honey back to the bees and having them make comb honey of it.

At the time it was written, the price difference between extracted honey and comb honey was such that hr (And by implication anyone using his sytem) could make many times as much money selling the resulting comb honey.

With this in mind, I wonder if it would be possible, during a time when no strong nectar flow was on, to feed maple syrup (The real stuff.) to the bees and coax them to store it away in comb honey boxes, rounds or casettes as a novelty.

The resulting "Maple Honey" would likely be blended by the bees with whatever honey was coming in at the moment, but it might just be really tasty-probably too expensive for anything but a novelty gift for family and perhaps other beekeepers, but it might be fun. If, that is, it would work at all.

Would Maple Syrup process down into a "honey" that would be stable when stored in the comb? Real Maple syrup is never, in my experience, as thick as honey. Would the bees thicken it to Honey consistancy when storing it?

Would it ferment in the comb?

Would it crystallize?

If anyone has played around with this, I'd love to hear about your experience. I'm considering playing with a variation on this with my backyard hive. I belong to a group that has a running joke about "Northwoods Brown Mead" that is: Coca Cola. People have actually taken Coke Syrup and made "Mead" out of it using home-brewing recipies. (Alcoholic and Caffinated- I have heard it packs quite a whallop.) A pefect gift next christmas for these punnsters would be a box or two of "Northwoods Brown Honey"; Coke Syrup Packaged by the bees in comb honey form. These Cola addicts will probably <love> the stuff on their morning tost.

If I do this early in the season, so that the bees aren't storing it away for winter, will feeding cola syrup to the bees do them any harm?

I have heard of bees storing away drink syrups stolen from packaging plant spills, but have never heard if it does the bees any harm. Can any of you enlighten me? (Do caffeine and bees mix?)

Now, before anyone throws a hissy- I'm contemplating doing this for a lark, have no intention of markenting it, and have no intention on misleading anyone as to the non-floral nature of my "Un-Honey" The fact that it's Cola is the whole point of the <joke>. I'll be satisfied if I get one comb super of this stuff for gifts.

So any reason Not to try this?

Ellen

In Michigan



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