Robin said:
> that artificial honey (made by feeding refined sugar or fructose > syrup)
is a deficient food for honeybees compared with their natural  food  -
honey--

Some beekeepers will always believe honey is better for the bees than syrup.
They are entitiled to their opinions (which has not been backed up by
research).

Robin said:
  Some beekeepers remove honey the bees would otherwise eat themselves,  and
substitute sugar syrup, in order to increase their income.

I do not expect the list to understand the methods of the professional
beekeeper.  Most professional beekeepers do the above for several reasons.

We pull all supers  so hives will fit on trucks nicely and give the bees
fructose to eat and winter on because syrup is cheaper and I have NEVER seen
a study done by the USDA saying honey is better to feed bees than syrup.

Call it greed or whatever a commercial beekeeper is not going to feed a drum
of grade A honey to his bees unless feeding the honey is his only option.

Jim said:
Here's the question - do I remove 3 supers in the fall harvest, leave one
for the bees, and feed to insure that they pack the broodnest and super, or
do I remove 2 and leave 2?

I hope Jim (or beekeepers reading this post) are not treating with whatever
while the above supers are on and reusing those supers the next year for
honey production. When ever a super is used in the brood chamber and
chemicals used then the former honey super never is used as a honey super
again unless wax is changed. Once you use Apistan/checkmite you give up the
option of using supers for both brood rearing and honey production.

A main reason why Dee Lusby never wanted to use a chemical as her and Ed do
harvest honey from any of the five deep boxes they use in Arizona. Which was
the practice of beekeepers for years *before* chemicals.

Robin said:
> I happen to believe it is bad beekeeping to actually drive bees to
starvation by taking too much of the spring crop,

Starvation by removing all honey supers is common with hobby beekeepers in
the Midwest. The bees have simply put all surplus honey in the supers and
the flow is over. All bee books say to FEED after removing *all* supers *if*
needed. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT ALL THE COMMERCIAL BEEKEEPERS I RUN WITH DO!

Bob

Ps. Thanks to the private email from the Outlaw's in Florida about the
Outlaw family website. The picture of William Outlaw on the Swanee River
brought back memories!

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