Michael Housel wrote:

>        I have a question on the maple sugar flow.
>          Will the bees go to the taps in the trees?  Could it be feed to them
> to make maple honey?

I used to hang 5000 taps - before I figured out that I could make more product
with bees for the same investment. Anyway, The only time I saw honey bees around
the tapholes was late in the season. Some sap usually leaks out around the tap.
As it does, the water evaporates, leaving a sweet spot around the tap. Don't
imagine that they ever got much.
    Feeding the bees maple syrup won't work. Because it is caramelized, it will
give honeybees dysentary. But, there may be a way....
    The large sugaring operations here are using reverse osmosis machines
now-a-days.  This removes up to 75% of the water from the sap before it is
boiled, by forcing the sap through a membrane. The pores in the membrane allow
the water molecules (smaller) to pass through, but not the sugar molecules.
    So, if you started with 100 lbs of 2%sap...or 98 lbs of water and 2 lbs of
sugar....reduce it by 75%...leaves 24.5 lbs of water and 2 lbs of sugar...or an
8% solition...if I did my math correctly. If you fed a colony 8% syrup, instead
of 15%  nectar, would they make honey out of it? Something to think about while
watching all those little bubbles in your evaporator.

                                                                        Mike