Bill Truesdell wrote:
"Simoneau, thank you for a most interesting article. Reading it, I see no
way that white sugar fed as syrup would in any way lessen the bee's
immune system.."

Bill I could not agree more with you on that, and in fact, with all the
content of your post. My intervention was to share some references on bee
immunology but like you said, we must keep in mind that the winters in our
(your) country were here before the bees. Feeding our bees with a source of
energy (white sugar or HFCS)is a compensation or an adaptation process since
we do not have all year round available nectar and pollen.
It seems that not too many years ago, a common attitude was to take the
spring honey for the beekeeper while the darker, stronger fall honey was for
winter stores (James E.Tew in Bee Culture,sept.96). This is not valid
anymore.
According to James, who is Extension Specialist in Apiculture "several
papers have presented results concluding that common table sugar (sucrose)
is normally a better winter food than the honey that bees collect from
natural autumn sources."

Let's keep in mind that bees do not freeze to death, they starve to death.

André Simoneau, d.v.m.
Laboratoire de pathologie animale
L'Assomption, Québec
Canada