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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Bob Harrison <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 1 Mar 2004 11:04:43 -0600
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Hello Jim & All,

Jim said:
All I know is that there is lots of "off-spec"
stuff out there for all sorts of obscure uses,

True! You always need to know what you are getting in the way of scrap or
salvage. If bagged you need to know the amount of starch in the product.
A friend is trying now to find the amount of starch in 300# of laboratory
sugar. The manuafturer label on the side of the drum gives contact
information.

Jim said:
and that buying "scrap sugar" or "cheap feed"
are  possibly the most costly mistakes a
beekeeper could ever make.

The knowledgeable beekeeper can save big bucks on scrape as long as he can
indintify the product. My friends and I would never feed a scrape product we
did not know the source of and specs.

42% & 55% fructose as used in making soda pop (Coca Cola & Pepsi Cola) is
the most common bee feed. The studies I have read show bees winter better on
fructose than on many types of fall honey.

Although Chris & Robin point to using food color to prove a small amount has
found its way into honey in the U.K. . This is not necessarily the case in
the U.S. and Canada in the high honey production areas as  flows are intense
and bees simply do not have time to move honey up. Those which winter in
Canada pull supers as fast as filled and pull the rest as soon as flows end
so they can began they fall feeding.

Less than 10% fructose is hard to detect which is way unscrupulous packers
have got away with adding fructose for years.

 Several packers were busted a few years back by the FDA when a disgruntled
former employee blew the whistle on his former employer for routinely
dumping fructose in honey to increase profit

. The trials were covered in the bee magazines and also the "Speedy Bee"
with Troy Fore attending the trials and reporting.
Without the employees singing a song the packers would have blamed the
beekeepers he bought honey from.

Fructose getting into honey is not considered a health problem by the FDA.If
you drink a couple soda pops (not diet) a week you will consume more
fructose than you ever would in your eating of honey (the U.S. annual
consumption of honey per person is slightly over one pound).

Granted pure honey DOES NOT contain 42% & 55% fructose.

Granted those guilty of adding fructose to improve profits should be
prosecuted and honey coming from beekeepers with a certain percent of
fructose level should be rejected by the packer.

 When bees are starving (which happens on a regular basis with commercial
beekeepers ) you feed the bees or they die. Most common times  are late fall
and early spring in our area of the Midwest. Honey supers will not go on
here for another 9 weeks. The gallon I fed each hive of mine last week is
not going to be around 9 weeks from now!

Those commercial beekeepers which feed fumidil B if going by directions need
to feed the fumidil B with 2 gallons of syrup.

If you think the cost of the antibiotic (fumidil B) alone is high figure the
cost of feeding 2 gallons of syrup, also to a hive which may not need
feeding and the labor plus  gas for two trips to the bee yards!

Report from Almond pollination in California received Sunday:

Rain almost every day and the bees have only had one good flight day. The
report came from a beekeeper with around 10,000 hives (his and other
beekeepers) in California pollinating Almonds.

If the situation does not improve in the next couple weeks I am afraid a
poor Almond set could happen (not beekeeper fault) and the hives could be a
real problem to remove from the groves because of mud and slick dykes.

Bob

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