At 12:17 PM 8/30/2006, you wrote:
>.....could even apply to a lot of honey here produced, for
>where does feeding stop and extraction begin? 

One would think the line was well before it started having a serious negative effect on the honey resulting in poor quality honey.  Isn't there a standard maximum limit of sugar that can be found in honey (which contains several different sugars) before it is considered adulterated?

The article seems to imply more than just feeding bees during lean years for survival, but actually feeding them for production itself, especially when taken in conjunction with the governments desire to replace the sugar with the herb and produce honey for sale.  Unless the sugar honey is somehow not as good for the bees themselves compared to the herb honey (which I doubt given the lack of carbohydrates in the herb), it looks reasonable to me that they are actually claiming to have turned sugar into gold.

I know it happens, and have even run into a beekeeper who fed sugar in order to make and harvest honey when no flow was on, purposely creating fake honey.  He felt that no mater the source, if it was stored in comb, it was honey.  But properly managed a very minimal amount of syrup should every be mixed into the honey by the bees.

I am still confused how they are expecting bees to survive on a low calorie sweetner.

-Tim 

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