Michael Housel wrote:

>        I have a question on the maple sugar flow.
>        When I was young in the mountains of Penna.  We gathered maple suryup

>         Will the bees go to the taps in the trees?  Could it be feed to them
> to make maple honey?  I'd like to hear for and against.  I think it would bee
> a better product.

If they are flying they will go to the taps, but remember the sap flows
well before temperatures are warm enough for the bees to fly.

And if you gather the sap and feed it to the bees it will be after
spring buildup, since they use that time for brood rearing and not
surplus, so the feeding will have to be either during the main honey
flow or soon after. You would have to remove the supers and then hope
they will take it exclusively and not mix it with other competing nectar
sources.

Plus, you will have to keep the maple sap in cold storage until then and
hope it does not start fermenting or spoil.

The key reason for not doing it is fairly simple. You are not going to
get much for maple flavored honey after all that trouble. We have sold
it at the Maine State Beekeepers booth and it goes more slowly than does
blueberry or raspberry honey. My guess is that people are looking for
natural bee products and honey-maple is not one of them while floral
sources are fine. And if I want maple honey I just mix it with my maple
syrup.

Finally, the clincher - boil the syrup down and you will get three to
ten times or more what you would get for an equivalent amount of honey.
Unlikely anyone would want to feed that to their bees, just to sell a
cheaper product.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Me