The link between corn syrup and colony collapse has really been played
up by the "alternative press" which no doubt knows more about these
matters than we do. Here's an amusing story. I wonder if you can count
the number of errors in it

BEES ON HFCS

According to USDA, approximately 420 million pounds of honey is
produced each year for human consumption in
North America. Most people believe honey is produced exclusively by
the natural enzymatic and digestive conversion of
pollen, nectar or other organic plant materials by bees to the
digestible multi-saccharide known and defined as “honey.”
However, true natural honey, whether USDA-certified or not, in various
grades, is only produced in the mid spring to late
summer, when the biological materials are readily available for bees
to digest, convert and regurgitate.

So how is honey production in many regions maintained continuously
into the fall, winter and early spring, when
the sources for conversion do not exist? The answer is the widespread
practice of feeding bees refined sucrose or refined
crystallized or liquid HFCS during the months when pollen and nectar
are not available. The bees then run the sweetener
through their digestive tracts. The resulting product is labeled as
honey but it may not have the same quality as natural
honey. Higher levels of refined fructose in honey cause accelerated
Maillard browning reactions when heated above 140
degrees F.

These additional months of stress on the hives - which often include
keeping the hives under light twenty-four hours
per day - eventually cause mite infestation in the hives and large bee
kill-offs. These cyclical kills, approximately every
fourth or fifth year, cause a shortage in production, and honey prices
spike upward.

"Worse Than We Thought The Lowdown on High Fructose Corn Syrup and Agave Nectar"
By Sally Fallon Morell and Rami Nagel
Wise Traditions SPRING 2009

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