My posts have been concerned with identifying possible causes for a colony
to become sick with virus (surely a major issue?) but the core group of
professional beekeepers on this list has concentrated on crushing the
observation that artificial honey (made by feeding refined sugar or fructose
syrup) is a deficient food for honeybees compared with their natural food -
honey-- and on a passing reference to greed being a poor motive for action.
Such unbalanced response is curious - 'methinks the lady doth protest too
much' - and we can consider a possible reason in a moment.
First, greed is defined as ' a rapacious desire for more than one needs or
deserves, of food, wealth or power'. It has been listed as one of the seven
deadly sins, but with all respect to the religious, avoidance of greed is
surely just a common-sense rule for living in social groups, and we do not
need to invoke the Great Beekeeper. And note it is by definition a
relative term. A professional beekeeper who needs to feed his family may
justly take more from his bees than a hobby beekeeper living comfortably on
a secure pension. But there will always be a limit - and the possibility of
greed is always with us.
Some beekeepers remove honey the bees would otherwise eat themselves, and
substitute sugar syrup, in order to increase their income. Reasearch has
shown (I believe) that artificial honey made from sugar syrup is actually
beneficial to bees in the quiescent period when they cannot fly to void and
no brood is being reared. So let's leave that feed aside. If bees are
starving in summer then obviously they must be fed or they will die. I
happen to believe it is bad beekeeping to actually drive bees to starvation
by taking too much of the spring crop, but I live on a pension and
professional beekeepers will act as they need to.
Professional however claim that research has shown that sugar feeding in no
way disadvantages bees and that any other opinion is necessarily wrong. The
claim is that anything left out of syrup that is in honey is amply available
in pollen, so there is no overall deficiency. Keith Benson has raised the
possibility that honey may be 'nothing more than a wonderful tasty beautiful
supersaturated solution of sugar and not some mythical life-giving elixir'
[for humans], and that it can be simply appreciated for what it is. He cuts
to the point with 'don't confuse the presence of a molecule or two of
something with the necessity of its presence, in the end it may simply be
tolerated and not required'.
Despite requests , no references to research on sugar feeding have been
posted on Bee-L. Bees consume honey at 3 times - with brood food and pollen
when growing as larvae, when completing their development on emergence
(worker bees add 93% to the nitrogen in their heads within 5 days of
emergence, 76% in the abdomen and 37% in the thorax - due to eating pollen
but they must take honey for liquid as well) , and as adult bees before
leaving to forage. So the research must be thorough if it is to rule out
the possibility that something in honey is needed before bees can make full
use of pollen. Colonies fed sugar need to be compared on amount of brood
raised, length of life of individual bees, resistance to disease and storage
of surplus.
Why imagine that there COULD be some constituent in honey that aids
digestion of pollen, or supplies some micro-nutrient otherwise missing? I
admit the hypothesis arises only from respect for evolution. Flowers
produce nectar solely - so far as we know - to attract pollinators,
especially bees. If nectar of pure sugar would do as well - or better - why
do plants expend energy on adding traces of minerals, enzymes, vitamins.
minerals and (we are told) other components not yet analysed? It would seem
that pollen is produced for the use of the plant itself - so that would not
be the place to put components designed only to help the pollinators. There
seem to be 2 possibilities: the trace components are in the juice of the
plant for itself and it would take more energy to exclude them from nectar
than to simply express them; or, that plant juice does NOT contain the
components and they are added specifically through the nectaries for the
benefit of pollinators. Does any plant biologist on the list know?
I have been challenged to name some component in honey NOT available to bees
through pollen. That of course I cannot do, not being a scientist. But
even if there is nothing unique to honey, there is still the question of
delivery. We know nurse bees eat pollen and honey before making brood
food - but do we know that say foragers continue to eat pollen, and not
rely on the traces in the honey they stock up on before a flight? Do bees
always have an instinct to provide themselves a balanced diet?
The issue of benefit to humans is really another thread but let's go on.
Here the supposition that may be something more to honey than fine-tasting
sugar again comes from reflecting on the evolutionary process, and pointing
to an apparent dis-continuity. Folklore (Ancient Eygptian, Assyrians,
Babylonians, Hebrews, Romans, Greek, mediaeval is full of references to the
power of honey to promote health (as well as specific healing of the sick) -
but in this scientific rational age beekeepers are saying honey is only nice
sugar (which does not promote health). Were all those civilisations
simply fooling themselves? There was also a long tradition of using herbs
for healing. Was that all fraud? The case against fraud is the length of
the tradition - probably extending back thousands of years. Humans have had
the same brains as us for something like 250,000 years - as hunter gatherers
they had time on their hands and would have had the curiosity to try eating
various foods. If repeatedly no benefit was found from a certain plant, it
seems unlikely the rumour of its usefullness could have survived in so long
an aural tradition - where all knowledge was passed on by word of mouth, it
was not written down and known only to a few specialists. So could it be
that there ARE herbal components that promote human health - and living to
old age - and that these same substances would be found in honey if we only
looked? The A-Z of Vital Vitamins & Minerals still lists various plants
for specific benefits - cranberry maintains bladder and kidney health, horse
chestnut seeds tighten the vascular system, clinical studies have shown St
John's Wort can have anti-depressant action (I quote few of many). My
apiary is covered in St John's Wort and surrounded by chestnuts. Of course
it is difficult to prove benefit to those who start a test clinically well -
how do you measure how much 'weller' they get? But people can feel degrees
of wellness themselves.
Where new research does seem to be making an impact is on the use of honey
in healing - particularly for burns, and for ulcers. Honey has an undoubted
anti-bactericidal effect, due in part to the high osmolarity (bacteria are
deprived of water), high acidity and breakdown of glucose to hydrogen
peroxide at the interface with the wound. Pioneer work by Peter Molan on
Manuka honey from New Zealand has resulted in samples of Manuka honey being
graded 1-10 for antibacterial activity, and then sold for several times the
price of food honey. This is especially clever as Manuka does not actually
taste well. But research by Dr Rose Cooper at Cardiff has shown pasture
honey is almost as effective - so any honey might be, but every sample
varies according to the nectar content. But here's the bad news. Cooper
included artificial honey in the tests in 1999/2000 for 'minimum inhibition
concentrations (%v/v) of honey for bacteria isolated from infected wounds' ,
testing 7 bacteria. Against MRSA (a growing problem in hospitals) Manuka
needed a concentration of 2.3, pasture 2.9 but artificial honey >30.
Artificial honey was at its best against Escherichia coli : 4.0; 7.8; 23.4.
Now you could say specific bactercidal activity has no relevance to
maintaining general health - but bacterial damage is increasingly implicated
in say stomach cancer for example , so keeping down bacteria could be as
important in the well as the sick.
The low performance of artificial honey may explain the virulence of attack
on the bare idea that some honies could be good for you. If there was more
research - and more honies joined Manuka in the higher price bracket -
'naturally produced' honey from careful hobby beekeepers will gain.
However, honey from beekeepers feeding sugar is likely to be found at the
low end of the anti-bactericidal range and so will remain a low value
product. Certainly, we have heard some professionals deride the whole
notion of honey being healthful. Is this really a clever marketing ploy?
It reminds of Gerald Rattner, of the family jewellers, who slammed his own
products as crap in an after dinner speech a few years back - and watched
his share price crash.
Would the public buy the notion of 'honey for health' , if backed by more
research? The reasons honey is bought in USA were surveyed by the National
Honey Board and updated in the summary by Ann Harman in Bee Biz April 2003.
Honey is bought as a tasty sweetener - but also for treating colds and flu.
Sales rise in winter for that reason. So the folk memory of treating with
honey survives in part - the message would need only to be widened. The
potential gains are great. Honey consumers today buy only 4 jars a year on
average. In Ancient Egypt, a groom contracted to supply his wife with 32
pounds of honey every year of the marriage. Time to reintroduce failure to
buy your wife enough beekeeper's own honey as grounds for divorce?
I am accused of reciting a mantra concerning natural honey and its benefits.
I hope I have only an open mind, and wonder why others have not, since at
present we cannot be sure either way until there is more research. But at
this time of life so much has ended in disillusion - let me hang on to the
thought that keeping bees in accordance with nature is good for me. To have
to burn my hives and keep osmia rufa just to collect pollen would be sad,
although they don't sting. Playing with my Honey-Maker would just not be
the same fun - ' a jar of Sourwood honey, Madam? Just a moment - let me add
a pinch of this mineral and two of that to this cane sugar syrup, tip in
some enzymes and a dollop of artificial Sourwood essence, swirl around to
activate and then drip through warmed air to reduce the water. It will be
ready in an hour, Madam'.
Not for me - but you might make more money, Jim.
Useful reading: Dr Beck and Smedley , Honey and Your Health, 1947 (222
pages); Cecil Tonsley , Honey for Health, 1969 (131 pages); D C Jarvis,
Artritis and Folk Medecine, 1960 - endorses honey and apple cider vinegar as
the folk medicine found in Vermont, 156 pages ; Royden Brown , Bee Hive
Products Bible, 1993 ( 220 pages) - an unabashed apiarian who believes in
regulating his own health through honey ; Dr Hasnain Walji, Bee Health, 1996
(78 pages) ; Dr Harry Riches, Medical Aspects of Beekeeping , 2000 (a
cautious approach from a medical doctor and well known UK beekeeper - 83
pages); Joe Traynor, Honey The Gourmet Medecine, 2002 (101 pages) ; and the
only fully research-based account Jones and Munn, Honey and Healing, IBRA
2001 - summaries of lectures by Dr Molan and Dr Rose Cooper and others, bags
of links to scientific reports, 49 pages.
Robin Dartington
Who agrees with Hamlet that 'there is more in this heaven and earth than you
dream of in your philosophy, Horatio'.
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