> ...but if mixed with syrups, and honey/syrup mixes could this be a cause
> of bees dying and beekeepers trying to figure out why.
This is in reference to salt, starches, and other toxic items in bee feeds.
Some beekeepers will feed scrap material to bees because they can get the
scrap cheap. I've done so myself, buying candy factory sugar, cookie
factory sugar, and surplus HFCS from a bankrupt candy factory. At the time,
it seemed smart, but knowing what I know now, I would not use or
recommended, anything except proven and tested, quaility-controlled and
certified materials.
Some beekeepers also think that feeding what is tested and recommended
cannot be enough for their bees, since the ingredients are so common,
simple,and understandable, so they add salts and other 'magic' ingredients.
I constantly point out that this may not be wise, unless we know for certain
that bees actually *need* the ingredient in question, and that it does not
bring along other compounds which are harmful with it, or cause a chemical
reaction over time in solution. Adding more ingredients is not necessarily
better, since the more ingredients, the more potential reactions.
As far as syrups are concerned, the various forms of HFCS have been drawn
into question. This is not new. Beekeepers have long known that type 42 is
not a good feed in the north where bees are confined, and that even type 55
demonstrates reduced bee lifespan (from minor to significant) in many caged
tests. Their use is subject to caveats. Where bees are free-flying and
have other food sources, especially in the south, some beekeepers consider
these effects to be negligible or unimportant.
Mixes of HFCS and sugar syrup are sold for some purposes, are cheaper than
sucrose, and seem to satisfy the needs of beekeepers in some circumstances,
however the problem of a variable and unpredictable behaviour remains. I
spoke to a beekeeper when I was in California in 2006 who figures his loss
of over 1,000 hives was due to such feed.
Sucrose syrup, with nothing added, on the other hand, has been almost
universally endorsed as being the best *supplemental* feed for bees, even
over many, if not most, honies. That is not to say that it is better than
combs of good honey stored by the bees themselves -- it is not -- but it is
usually better than honey which has been extracted and fed back, for various
reasons which we have covered many times.
> Especially, with hives on agric ranches/farms where salt blocks are used
> perhaps????? Just thinking.. any comments?
I suppose we have to wonder if bees would gather toxic levels of salt from
licks. I think not. Nobody reports huge clumps of bees on salt blocks, and
farmers never call to tell me that the cattle cannot get to the salt licks
due to bees, the way they do with their chop bins. How much salt can bees
get off salt blocks, anyhow, and what would be the effect on the bee sucking
up concentrated salt water?
We do see bees gathering minerals from dung heaps and such, but they do not
take a great deal of such material.
In a situation where the only water supply is contaminated with high salt
levels one might wonder, however bees seem to thrive near the ocean and
don't get poisoned, so I think this is a rather unlikely concern if there is
any other source of water.
Jerry has however, reported that some water sources are high in some
minerals which are relatively benign and not obvious to humans, but toxic to
bees, like fluorides in low concentrations.
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