>Thank you for volunteering Peter! I look forward to seeing what you find :) I would of course, but just too much to do here. >Do you have reason to believe that more is being fed? I get the impression that you folks feed an awful lot more than me (rarely more than 12lbs equivalent of sugar). Many in the UK also feed much more than me; our National Bee Unit, which used to be very near me before it moved to York, changed from native bees to NZ Italians and then had to feed 60lbs sugar per colony to get them through the winter. That made me think about inputs vs outputs. My 12 lbs input has given an average 70lbs output over 30+ years based on the number of colonies fed down the previous autumn - near 6:1 return. If you have to feed 60lbs to get the same output then all you are doing is converting sugar to honey; that might make a profit - but not much of profit given the price of sugar in the UK - but it seems to make little sense to me. Best wishes Peter 52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html