Cane sugar or Beet sugar?

[Winker]

I have just had a conversation with a beekeeper who tells me that feeding beet Sugar (Silver Spoon) to my bees may not be so good for them and may cause dysentery.

He suggests I only feed my bees with cane sugar.

Anyone got any information on this?

 

[tonybloke]

NOT AGAIN!!

 

[The Cumbrian]

I have just had a conversation with a beekeeper who tells me that feeding beet Sugar (Silver Spoon) to my bees may not be so good for them and may cause dysentery.

He suggests I only feed my bees with cane sugar.

Anyone got any information on this?

I have heard this as well. In an article on a website called beesource (add the www and a 3 letter suffix) entitled


Considerations in Selecting Sugars for Feeding to Honey Bees

American Bee Journal, February, 1977, Vol. 117 (2): 76, 77

by ROY J. BARKER
U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bee Research Laboratory
2000 E. Allen Road, Tucson, Arizona 85719

It says

"Refined beet and cane sugar are pure sucrose and, of course, are safe and nutritionally equivalent. "

and

"Bailey (1966) found that semi-refined cane sugar was harmless but that semi-refined beet sugar decreased the life of bees. So, impurities in his unrefined beet sugar must be toxic."

So going by that it seems to depend on how refined the sugar is.

 

[madasafish]

I have just had a conversation with a beekeeper who tells me that feeding beet Sugar (Silver Spoon) to my bees may not be so good for them and may cause dysentery.

He suggests I only feed my bees with cane sugar.

Anyone got any information on this?

Yes
This is so out of date that the scientific debunking of it was decades pre internet.

Modern manufacturing means both types of sugar are interchangeable and indistinguishable.

Your beekeeper is sadly out of date...

 

[itma]

I have just had a conversation with a beekeeper who tells me that feeding beet Sugar (Silver Spoon) to my bees may not be so good for them and may cause dysentery.

He suggests I only feed my bees with cane sugar.

Anyone got any information on this?

There is NO difference between white (refined) sugar from different sources.

For the bees, don't even think about using any brown (unrefined, or semi-refined) sugars.


End of thread. (Please ...)

 

[Finman]

.
I like gold spoon sugar but Lidl does not sell it.

Selecting sugar 1977!
Lets hope that in 35 years bees have reared to beat sugar tolerant.


Oh boy...

 

[drstitson]

"Cane sugar or Beet sugar?"

YES.

 

[hedgerow pete]

codswhalop springs to mind, does great sage also run down the road after a swarm banging iron keys against a saucepan to hypnotise the bees to landing and what about the great classic of throwing salt over a hive to purify it when it is aggressive, that realy does work you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

honestly the sooner these idiots die off the better

 

[Poly Hive]

Quoting research from 1977 is just a little pointless, and further from NA.

This is a dodo of a discussion.

Its as relevant as warm and cold way on OMF.

PH

 

[The Cumbrian]

Quoting research from 1977 is just a little pointless, and further from NA.

Surely when that research shows the very point the rest of you have been making but without reference being given it is with a point.

Personally I prefer to tell somebody the facts and back it up by some reference when possible rather than say "that's wrong - but you will just have to believe me".

Saying research from a long time ago is pointless is a bit like saying the research which found penicillin is pointless - IMO of course.

 

[Finman]

Surely when that research shows the very point the rest of you have been making but without reference being given it is with a point.

Personally I prefer to tell somebody the facts and back it up by some reference when possible rather than say "that's wrong - but you will just have to believe me".

Saying research from a long time ago is pointless is a bit like saying the research which found penicillin is pointless - IMO of course.

sure.

I am not only one who has feeded bees 50 years wth sugar what I get most cheaply. In USA they feed cheap starch corn syrup which has been processed from starch.

Many say that you cannot give crystallized rape honey to bees over winter.
Jep. I had a big store of old honey and last autumn I di not bought a kilo to feed with sugar. My 30 hives have just wintered with old rape honey and that they had consumed it 7 months. I cannot say how much there was rape but it is my main yield plant. Hives are all alive more or less.

Our menthor said, don't give crystallized honey. I have only crystallized honey. - You will learn, he said. I said that there are no quid honey in Finnish hives in winter. Fireweed honey in norrh Finland is only one.

jep. So it goes. Nothing is perfect, but main thing is that it goes and fast.

'.

 

[Poly Hive]

I rather would prefer to receive modern penicillin than that discovered in 19 oatcake.

The bottom line is that modern sugars make no odds.

There is no argument. How can there be if they are the same?

PH

 

[The Cumbrian]

I rather would prefer to receive modern penicillin than that discovered in 19 oatcake.

The bottom line is that modern sugars make no odds.

There is no argument. How can there be if they are the same?

PH

The point I was making which you appear to have missed was that as long ago as 1966 it had been shown that unrefined (or partially refined) beet sugar could be a problem.

In the 1977 document they mentioned this and pointed out refined they were both the same.

To me the age of the research is irrelevant. Once it has been proved there will be no new research. You aren't surely suggesting that there are still people researching to show Beet sugar and Cane sugar are (when refined) the same? If there aren't such people the research which shows the facts is bound to be old. IMO it is better to provide a reference however old than just say "it is so - you had better believe it."

I suppose I am a bit like Finman (perish the thought) in that where there is research I like to know about it.

 

[DarynWebb]

This one again?

 

[Finman]

To me the age of the research is irrelevant. t.

I have an education of biological researcher in univrsity of Helsinki.
I have a little bit nose to make difference which is relevant knowledge and which is not. Those university researchers are not allways so practical.

In food stuffs during years we have seen that companies can bye researchers to arrange proper researchs.

If we look what for example humans have eaten during bad days and it is ridiculous to read in these days what wise guys think.

After war during years 1945 -1960 in eastern Finland people really starved. half million people moved to Sweden to get work. South and west Finland sent food stuffs to Russian border to help people.

During last war Russian war prisoners got frozen turnips to eate in Finnish camps. It has 1/3 energy compared to potato. Yes some ten percents died. Then guards carried bodies out of cab, some of them had lost their muscles. Pals ate them.

Now, 50 years later we have time to discuss, is it brown or white sugar, red or green. We eate in this county 30 kg sugar per person in a year.

We drink alcohol, smoke, what ever we do and then we ask, what is best sugar. But diabetes is dangerous... that can I say.


*****

And finally, and an ordinary sitizen seldom knows what hea eates but he has every kind of opinion about food

You will be surprised when you read this: http://www.fineli.fi/foodsearch.php?name=sugar&lang=en

.
.

 

[BILL.HEARD]

NOT AGAIN!!

 

[Finman]

Lets talk how to make 1:1 SYRUP!!! iNTERESTING!