"in our region,Alberta Canada we need to take out most of canola honey and replace 
it with sugar feed. Canola honey crystalizes and becomes not accessible to 
bees for feed during winter."

I have read that cause and effect many times - that some honey crystallizes, and then the bees can't use it during the winter and starve.  While I am not questioning that bees starve in hives containing crystallized honey, I am confused and wonder if it is really cause and effect.  This is because many people, including me, emergency feed granulated sugar on newspaper on the top bars.  I just did it this past winter to save several hives.  I'm pretty sure that granulated sugar is just refined, crystallized sugar that has been ground to a consistent particle size.  So, how can they eat that sugar and survive, but not their 'own' crystallized honey?  Is it because other things in the honey get concentrated, when it crystallizes, making it inedible?  Is it because the bees can handle crystallized food for a time but not for all winter?  Is it because the granulated sugar is on top and not in the cells, and the bees just react differently to it?  What am I missing?

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Bill Greenrose
Claremont, NH
+43.35687 +43° 21’ 25”
-72.3835   -72° 23’ 01”
CWOP: D5065
Weather Underground: KNHCLARE3
HonetBeeNet: NH001

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