I doubt that the notion that bees can't use crystallized honey in the
winter is true. I learned beekeeping from Mr. Robert Talcott, a Montana
beekeeper from Broadus, MT. To this day, his colonies were the strongest that
I've ever seen, and his honey production on average, for a commercial
beekeeping operation was very high.
His bee operation was in one of the coldest areas of Montana, with lots of
snow. His colonies were always amazingly strong in the spring. He
explained that his philosophy was that the bigger the bee population in the fall,
the stronger in the early spring, when Montana, with its short growing
season, got the first pollen and nectar flows. He believed that the more bees
in the colonies in the spring, when that first flush hit, the better his
colonies would do for the rest of the summer. Have weak colonies in early
spring - they'd fail to harvest the early bloom.
He admitted that lots of bees ate lots of food, and that because the
winters were variable, how much food per year was always a question.
So, each year, he placed a pallet in the corner of each apiary. He then
stacked enough supers full of honey on these pallets to allow him to ADD
honey to the colonies in January. Obviously, he tarped these supers up to
keep out robbers.
In Montana, we get a January warm spell, often a thaw, then it gets cold
again in February. Bob would load up a snowmobile and head out. The drifts
were so deep, he'd just back up to a snowbank, run the snowmobile off his
pickup, and drive over the top of the fences.
When he got to the apiary, he'd take a snow shovel, dig down to each
colony, pop the lid. If he decided that the colony was going to be short on
food, he'd add a super of honey from the boxes on the pallet. That way, he
didn't have starved off colonies in the spring.
In the spring, he'd go around to the yards, pick up any of the honey supers
still on the pallets, take them home, and store them in his warehouse for
the next winter.
Now, the honey was crystallized, yet the bees apparently used it. If they
couldn't, many should have starved.
Jerry
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