Dick Allen wrote:
> studies by Bailey in England as far back as 1966 showed that such use can reduce the 
> life of honeybees if natural nectar is not coming in when the treated syrup is fed.?
>   
That was the first one, and it includes comparisons with HFCS, boiled 
syrup and Cream of Tartar. It was an excellent study and has been 
supported in later studies. However, it is still recommended in many bee 
books including my edition of "The Hive and the Honey Bee".

Canadian beekeepers get the best of it since sugar is cheap for use as a 
winter feed. US price supports make HFCS the preferred feed, but it is 
not as good as sugar.

The increase winter mortality from Tartaric Acid is low ( I recall about 
5-10% loss in a colony) but has the most impact in cold winters. It 
slows down spring buildup because of the reduced number of bees. It is 
one of those things that, if you use it across the board for winter 
feed, you see no impact since all colonies are equally affected. Hence, 
there is no problem. There are a lot of things like this that lull one 
into thinking they are doing well when their beekeeping neighbor seems 
to do better. They think it must be location or some other factor when 
it is actually practice.

There was a discussion on this in the archives as well as a lot of heat 
on winter feeds, so please take a look there before posting since they 
would only add to Jim and my CCD posts which have lead to a major 
increase the entropy of the universe.

I have applied for carbon credits.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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