> As far as winter feed, the best to worse are sucrose (cane sugar
> dissolved in warm, not boiling, water), HFCS and honey.

I think that this is a generalization.  While often true, I think it is
hard to beat good clover (or other white) honey laid into place early by
a strong, healthy colony of bees.

Sugar is definitely okay, but if the honey is removed late and replaced
by sugar, that disruption can lead to "mysterious" colony death later.
IMO, late season manipulation of the brood chamber is a very frequent
cause of 'unexplainable' colony death in winter.

As for HFCS, caged bee studies by Rob Currie have shown that type 55
gives a slightly shorter bee life than sugar.  Type 42 is not
recommended for wintering AFAIK.

We don't ever touch the honey in our broods, and winter on mostly honey,
supplemented by as much sugar syrup as the bees will take.  We had 11.5%
winter loss last winter, while others lost up to 90%.

Our losses were 100% due to queen failures.  We do not do any fall
checks, so probably 5% of the hives were not OK going in.  Moreover, in
any 6 month period, some queens are likely to fail, so I cannot blame
feed for *any* loss in our 2,300 hives.

Our honey is often granulated, and is often -- like last fall -- canola
honey mixed with alfalfa honey.  The variety of canola/rape and the flow
conditions under which it is gathered determine whether it is 'soft set'
or like concrete.

Properly managed, bees can often do very nicely on hard stores.
Usually, IMO, it is the beekeeper who killed the bees when they die
overwinter, not the stores, etc...

allen
http://www.honeybeeworld.com

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