The question was raised about how honey would fare against sugar cane in 
its "carbon footprint'.

On its face, it would seem that beekeeping has less impact but all it 
takes is a few moments of thought to paint a different picture.

The most obvious is that we are dealing with an insect on one hand and a 
plant on the other. Bees emit CO2 and sugar cane takes it in. Lots of it.

When you consider the energy required to produce a pound of sugar 
compared to a pound of honey, we forget that the bee consumes most of 
its honey production and we only get the excess. My guess is that about 
20% of all the honey produced by a colony is excess taken off by the 
beekeeper. The bee has consumed 80% of the crop which has gone into heat 
and more CO2. If you ever visited a sugar mill, they use all of the cane 
so you have 100% utilization. They even use the biomass left after 
extracting sugar to provide fuel for the plant. 
(http://www.sucrose.com/lcane.html) So it is a closed system and much 
more "sustainable" than honey production.

Beekeeping is still labor intensive while cane sugar production is 
mechanical (at least in the US). More cane sugar can be harvested with 
less energy per pound than honey.

That is only a start.

The carbon footprint of honey is a subject best left alone.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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