From: "Dave" :    Christine, or Robin, or whoever...     Get this and get
this clear: WE DO NOT PRODUCE SUGAR  HONEY!   Quit muddying the discussion
with your muddy thinking".

Oh dear, done it again!  Or rather Robin has - Christine is merely the
patient provider of the computer.

My crime was to write on 27 August: "When I recently referred to research on
the value of honey in healing (as circumstantial evidence there is something
in floral honey that is not in sugar honey) and referred to IBRA's 2001,
'Honey and Healing' which gives lectures given by five research scientists
(the first ending with references to 97 journals, mostly medical and the
second  article ending with 155 references - and so on), Keith Benson just
came back 'I have yet to see this a standard medical therapy - in fact, it
is just a fringe thing".

Now how Dave can interpret that as an assertion that he produces sugar honey
leaves me totally and absolutely nonplussed . Is everything I write
interpreted as a coded attack on professional beekeepers?

It would not matter that Dave has this paranoia  except that he goes on:
"People
ask me. "Do you feed sugar to your bees?"  Of course I do, if they
need it. I will not lie to them. But the feeding is NOT done when
they are producing honey. It is done in the winter, or during a long
period of adverse weather, or when they are contract pollinating a
crop which does not produce honey. It is when bees are threatened
with starvation, not when they are producing".

The trouble with this is that there HAS been evidence posted to this list
that some beekeepers do feed sugar not only when bees are starving but also
as a deliberate practice to increase honey production. Dave's post therefore
gives us his own practice but appears to deny that any other beekeeper might
work differently.  That is misleading .

As we have wandered far from 'wax foundation' since I launched the thread on
20 August, I will start a new thread shortly on 'Sugar fed bees - origin and
uses' in which we can discuss (calmly, objectively, with reference to
science) the evidence in text books, on the net and on this list and in
journals that some beekeepers thruout the world are feeding sugar to boost
production - and we can consider the potential risks (if any) to the
reputation of beekeeping and of honey as a pure product.

Robin Dartington

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