In article <[log in to unmask]>, tom barrett
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>Leave the bees one super of honey rather than feeding them syrup. This will
>IMHO ensure that the bees are getting a food which contains the enzymes
>which they have put into the honey rather than the syrup which we otherwise
>feed them.

The bees add enzymes to their 'nectar' source whatever it is. It is how
they process the syrup into non crystallising stores.

For effective wintering, especially if you have long periods without
flight, you also want as little indigestible solids as possible in the
winter diet, to avoid the need for defecation.

Sugar IS a better winter feed than honey, if given in good time and
properly ripened. We use specially manufactured syrup with a sugars
profile similar to honey (but no waste to accumulate in the gut) all the
time now, and it seems better still, although a little more expensive.
(This syrup requires very little processing as it is already down at 28%
water, so dry it a little and cap it is all that is needed.)

The cost/value theme you raised is of course also present. In the UK
bulk market at this time 20lb of blossom honey is about GBP 30.00, 20lb
equivalent sugar weight of special syrup to replace it is GBP 5.50.
Worth the work, when the substitute is even better than the original?

However, if the bees were stronger in spring on natural stores, and
after all we are talking the value of only one super of honey here, the
benefits would outweigh the extra cost and a super of honey would be
left. (Been there, done that, keeping over 1000 supers of blossom honey
back for feeding.) But there is no benefit, indeed the bees were a
couple of bars poorer in spring on the natural stores than the
substitute, so we take the extra crop.

Following the Scandinavian example you would also strip out all or most
of the natural stores in the broodnest. I've tried that too, and it
works fine, but very laborious for marginal gain. It gives a splendid
opportunity to get some late comb drawn with the syrup feed though, as
autumn drawn comb is always perfect worker (no drones wanted, so why
make them?).

Some of the things I have read in recent threads regarding the evils of
feeding sound very extreme. Judicious feeding is a crucial management
tool, especially in summer dearths, spring before nectar sources are
freely available, and in autumn after they have ended. The so called
natural options advanced are just a recipe for low crops and increased
death rates, elevating (or relegating?) honey to a scarcity position
that would take it out of mainstream consumption. Fine for the beekeeper
and his immediate cohorts at an amateur level, but bad for those urban
based consumers who want to include honey in their family diet.

An example of the judicious use of a feed was last summer in these
parts. Spring and early summer weather was truly awful. Colonies were
building only slowly. A fine line between survival and starvation was
being walked all the time. Little swarming, little nectar, curtailed
brood rearing, and even in some places drone slaughter started in late
June. I gave a remedial feed of a gallon (rarely two to very strong
colonies) at that time, except for a few locations where there was a
natural light flow. My friend did not, for a variety of reasons.

 From mid July the weather improved a bit and by then I had almost twice
as much brood in my hives as my friend did.

The bees went to the heather, and in August we got a weather window. I
had bee power of sorts, he did not. I got 45.9 lb of heather honey per
colony, he got 13.8 lb per colony. 10 to 12 lb of sugar syrup at the
right time made all that difference. End of the debate in my mind. (No
doubt the gainsayers will be sceaming 'purity!' already, but think how
much of that went into brood feeding to help raise all those extra bees,
and the final difference was three times as much as the total feed
anyway. If any syrup got in there it would be negligible, and certainly
did not impact on the marketability of the harvest to prestigious
packers.)

Sugar feeding at the right times works wonders and there is no economic
case, and very little moral case, for deliberately withholding it when
it is required. Do it right and you should not degrade your harvest in
quality terms, and improve it greatly in quantity. Working prosperous
bees are contented and healthy. Struggling bees are not, and their
ability to gather a subsequent harvest, often in a very short weather
window, is compromised.

Use the feed tank as required and don't feel bad about it.


Second theme. Honey quality from amateurs and professionals.

Take heed of what Allen says on this. Professionals cannot afford to
offer bad product. Their livelihood depends on that. If the produce
rubbish they will soon be in trouble. Amateurs are under no such
pressures.

Comparing like with like (ie Local honey), the very best samples I have
seen have been from amateurs, but also all the really terrible ones. Yet
they remain unshakeably convinced of the superiority of their product to
that of the big guys who do not give it their level of attention. Wrong.

All of us have bees, and the bees make the honey. In its pure state the
honey from my bees and any amateur along the road, from the same forage
and the same circumstances, will be identical. The bees do not know what
the status of their keeper is. However, after harvest we have infinite
capacity to ruin the stuff.

Amateur showbench standards are only available to those who are able to
lavish uneconomic amounts of time on their product, producing it
sparkling and polished. There is no reason why, other than the time
factor, why a professionals honey should not be presented to the same
standards. Indeed, in the past we have had a guy come to me regularly
for a certain type of honey to enter in a show in his own name, and it
usually won, but all the jars polished and immaculate, not a bubble on
the top, not a fingerprint on the jars. Professionals do not enter for
two reasons. One is they do not have the time, and secondly they have
nothing to gain and plenty to lose. If you win there is no triumph,
because, after all, you are a professional, but if you do not win there
is great chuckling in the beekeeping fraternity.

We have been offered such awful honey by amateurs that as Allen said,
you really would not want to eat it, and that is even without seeing
their honey house. A recent thread on the use of second hand pickle jars
brought similar to mind from the past about taints. Honey is
exceptionally susceptible to taint, and old pickle jars will cause some
taint. You cannot avoid it entirely even with very thorough washing.

We have been offered honey smelling of:-

Cooking oil (in second hand plastic oil tubs)

Paint. (A guy who was a painter cleaned out the tins and put his honey
in then)

Pickles (Plastic tubs this time)

Jam  (Catering jam tubs)

Oranges (Reason unknown)

French fries (chips over here)  (Second hand oil tubs again, in which
the used oil had been dumped)

Ice cream (tubs again)


All rejected, all caused deep offence, all denied any taint. If you are
used to the taint you will not notice it. All cited cost as the reason
for using recycled containers, and would not take the free containers we
issued to the small producers as it 'restricted who they could sell it
to' and thus they might not get the very best price.

Worst of all though was the guy who was too mean to buy enough buckets
for his crop, so only had a few. He lovingly placed a supermarket
carrier bag in each tub as a liner, filled them off the extractor, let
it go rock hard, then lifted the bags out and repeated the process. So
he turned up at our door with forty 60lb blocks (about three years
harvest) of hard set honey in carrier bad liners to sell. Trouble was he
did not even use new carrier bags, preferring to get multiple use out of
them before he 'gave them away' with his honey. In his case he liked to
cut his grass, take the clippings away to the dump in the bags, and
bring the empty bags back, when he then used them in the honey house.
Most of the bags had grass clipping floating in the honey in greater or
lesser amounts, some of it decaying and thus stinking.

He badmouthed us for years after rejecting the honey. After all, what
did we know! The best honey in the world comes from his area! (Doesn't
it always!)

A professionals duty is to provide a honey of widespread acceptability,
at a sensible price, in order to have a viable market. Thus he cannot
attain the pinnacles of finish that a showbench person will aspire to.
He must however comply with legislation and have a clean hygienic set
up, which does a high quality job on a high quality raw material. Not
out and out showbench standard, but quite close to it. Sure, there are
some so-so professionals out there who scrape by, but not many. Amateurs
will give you the whole spectrum from brilliant to inedible, with
impunity from the consequences. I'm not in any way against amateurs,
help them when I can, and occasionally steal ideas from them too, but to
imply that a professional is of necessity worse at his job than an
amateur is just plain wrong.


--
Murray McGregor

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