Honey vs syrup & over wintering

[fiat500bee]

Of course I can. Why not?

Et voi.
Sorted my eye out. 👁👁

 

[Finman]

Sounds smart that Python case.
Is that humour you like?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Sounds smart that Python case.
Is that humour you like?

Python is legendary and definitely off the wall.

Have you ever watched Life of Brian? It's easier to understand but still Python.

 

[bobthecob]

Isn't the elephant in the room how the inexperienced beekeeper, who feeds sugar, makes sure that the bees don't move the sugar syrup up to the honey supers when they expand the brood nest area?

Or indeed how the experienced beekeeper avoids this happening? I feed sugar, but I have wondered how often this happens.

 

[fiat500bee]

Or indeed how the experienced beekeeper avoids this happening?

One of the reasons my nearest and dearest forced me to become a beekeeper was because we had become convinced that the honey we were buying from supermarkets was significantly contaminated/adulterated with sugar. After taste-testing some accidental "honey"-syrup (which incidentally tasted better and was a better consistency than some supermarket honey!), this assumption has been confirmed.

You can presume that the sugar which has been stashed as winter stores is consumed by the bees before the spring honey season, you can be very careful in sporadic light syrup feeding when you want to establish a colony and have frames drawn, you can feed very precisely when your bees are on the edge of starvation; but it confounds me to work out how you can ever have any certainty that sugar hasn't been incorporated into your honey.

 

[Speybee]

One of the reasons my nearest and dearest forced me to become a beekeeper was because we had become convinced that the honey we were buying from supermarkets was significantly contaminated/adulterated with sugar. After taste-testing some accidental "honey"-syrup (which incidentally tasted better and was a better consistency than some supermarket honey!), this assumption has been confirmed.

You can presume that the sugar which has been stashed as winter stores is consumed by the bees before the spring honey season, you can be very careful in sporadic light syrup feeding when you want to establish a colony and have frames drawn, you can feed very precisely when your bees are on the edge of starvation; but it confounds me to work out how you can ever have any certainty that sugar hasn't been incorporated into your honey.

Here was me thinking that honey was altered sugars from several varied sources, ranging from 1:1 syrup to plant nectars and then regurgitated as ‘bee sick’ , which we know as honey?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Because most of my colonies are in poly there are always frames if stores remaining in spring. I take them out leaving enough to last them till I next look in. That way I can be fairly sure that the bees are not moving syrup up to the first super to give the queen room to lay.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Sounds smart that Python case.
Is that humour you like?

Python is legendary and definitely off the wall.

Have you ever watched Life of Brian? It's easier to understand but still Python.

 

[Finman]

Jee... That was great....

 

[madasafish]

Because most of my colonies are in poly there are always frames if stores remaining in spring. I take them out leaving enough to last them till I next look in. That way I can be fairly sure that the bees are not moving syrup up to the first super to give the queen room to lay.

+1 for me too.

And no doubt lots of other beekeepers as well..

Not rocket science...

 

[fiat500bee]

Here was me thinking that honey was altered sugars from several varied sources, ranging from 1:1 syrup to plant nectars and then regurgitated as ‘bee sick’ , which we know as honey?

Don't be calling it "bee sick", (which obviously it's not) or you're in danger of having a detrimental effect on the market for real honey.

A strange thing that confounds me but that has cropped up a few times is that in order to justify a questioned practise, some beekeepers seem happy to belittle the unique status of the product that they help the bees work so hard to produce.

In a very short amount of time in beekeeping I have already proved to myself that I can quickly and in large quantities produce a form of "honey" which has been through bees and which with the admixture of a small amount of real honey would be convincing enough for many non-afficianados of honey.

Using your (I hope) tongue-in-cheek logic, someone (not me) might say that whisky is just flavoured alcohol watered down with muddy water.
I'm not sure why I'm "defending" the qualities honey on a beekeeping forum.

PS. Just realised we are way off-topic so I'll rest my weary case here...I'm happy to debate it on a more relevant thread.

 

[Murox]

............snip...................
Using your (I hope) tongue-in-cheek logic, someone (not me) might say that whisky is just flavoured alcohol watered down with muddy water.
...........snip.........
PS. Just realised we are way off-topic so I'll rest my weary case here...I'm happy to debate it on a more relevant thread.

That would bee the blended supermarket stuff again wouldn't it ?

 

[North End Bees]

Here was me thinking that honey was altered sugars from several varied sources, ranging from 1:1 syrup to plant nectars and then regurgitated as ‘bee sick’ , which we know as honey?

I attended a zoom talk recently by an NDB beekeeper who was telling us about some unusual green honey he'd once found in his home hive.
He was very perplexed by it until he remembered having the family over for a birthday party a few weeks earlier where he'd seen lots of bees on the green-iced dinosaur birthday cake which had been left out on the party table!

 

[Erichalfbee]

I attended a zoom talk recently by an NDB beekeeper who was telling us about some unusual green honey he'd once found in his home hive.
He was very perplexed by it until he remembered having the family over for a birthday party a few weeks earlier where he'd seen lots of bees on the green-iced dinosaur birthday cake which had been left out on the party table!

Must have been a big dinosaur

 

[North End Bees]

Must have been a big dinosaur

I'm not saying he had a whole super of it!

 

[Speybee]

Don't be calling it "bee sick", (which obviously it's not) or you're in danger of having a detrimental effect on the market for real honey.

A strange thing that confounds me but that has cropped up a few times is that in order to justify a questioned practise, some beekeepers seem happy to belittle the unique status of the product that they help the bees work so hard to produce.

In a very short amount of time in beekeeping I have already proved to myself that I can quickly and in large quantities produce a form of "honey" which has been through bees and which with the admixture of a small amount of real honey would be convincing enough for many non-afficianados of honey.

Using your (I hope) tongue-in-cheek logic, someone (not me) might say that whisky is just flavoured alcohol watered down with muddy water.
I'm not sure why I'm "defending" the qualities honey on a beekeeping forum.

PS. Just realised we are way off-topic so I'll rest my weary case here...I'm happy to debate it on a more relevant thread.

The term ‘bee sick’ was tongue in cheek but to illustrate that sugars whether from syrup or nectar are somehow changed by the bees system.
I would never repeat such a thing to any consumer, just as I would never say that whisky is ‘just barley water that has gone off‘.

Reminds me of a couple of weeks ago when I visited a big deli that also sells whiskies,to sell them honey.
Me: I have some lovely locally produced honey.
Manager: I’m not that keen on honey
Me: Here I’ve got a wee sample for you to try.
Manager: Naw I don’t like honey.
Me: Och well not a problem I will try XYZ down the road.
Manager: I would take some if it had whisky in it.
Me: Thanks for the suggestion but why would I want to add another product to a natural unadulterated product like this honey?

 

[Speybee]

I attended a zoom talk recently by an NDB beekeeper who was telling us about some unusual green honey he'd once found in his home hive.
He was very perplexed by it until he remembered having the family over for a birthday party a few weeks earlier where he'd seen lots of bees on the green-iced dinosaur birthday cake which had been left out on the party table!

If it’s sugar it’s potential food

 

[Ash-Rhea]

Would your ivy honey then not be ‘contaminated’ with sugar syrup, so it’s not really honey anymore?

Yes, but I leave it for overwinter stores.

 

[Speybee]

Yes, but I leave it for overwinter stores.

Even better

 

[Dods bisyssla]

Hello
Can anyone share any scientific papers or research studies, which prove / disprove the benefits or otherwise, of bees feeding on their own honey over winter vs being fed syrup?
I know some beekeepers feel strongly one way or the other and intuitively it feels honey is best. I’m really keen to understand the facts though as a result of scientific studies, if they exist!?
Elaine

Hello,
this simple question seems, strangely enough, not to have been answered in any field study. I have read hundreds of studies but they all have in common that they mostly are carried out in lab environmental or the target was to determine the best supplement to honey without including honey to the study as a baseline. I do have two studies to share - one that tested life span of bees and found that honey gave the longest lifespan.http://www.resistantbees.com/fotos/estudio/feeding.pdf. Its a labtest but it was carried out over three years and also tested the impact of the different feeds on the mid gut and showed honey to be best, pure sugar syrup 2nd best and the more things mixed in the syrup the more damage to the midgut and hence shorter lifespan. The 2nd study checked the impact of different supplement diets on the gene expression and, again, all supplements gave (detrimental) changes compared to honey. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep05726. But a real field study have, to my knowledge, not been carried out and therefore we will start one next season.
On the other hand, there are so many myth and "common knowledge" that needs to be debunked; I saw several in the answers further down; Fex someone gave the old argument that heather and honey dew have high ash content and hence not suitable as winter food (should cause dysentery) - any study supporting that claim one might ask? The answer is, again, no not to my knowledge. The fact is that a study done allready in 1935 by researcher Alfonsos determined that no food by itself caused dysentery, the only topic that have any impact was the issue to get rid of water and if the food had chrystallized and "splitted" the food in one "water" and one solid portion then the risk for dysentery was much higher. The ash content was of no relevance since it never gave any higher content in the guts - he carried out his studies over several years in real field conditions. This study cant be find on the net but if you want it then contact us on our blog. WordPress.com. It is also quite easy to calculate a theorethical value and see that indeed it will never be any critical amounts. Use 15 kg and 15000 bees and the hindgut can have 30% of the body weight before the amount of feces will give issues, at 45% dysentery will be a fact - according to Alfonsos study.
Just to confirm his study we carried out a test 2 years ago with 50% heather honey as winterfood (all 9 hives came out super strong) and this year we have one hive on 100% heather and compare it to 100% summer honey. We weigh the hives every month to determine food consumption and next season we will follow these hives and see if there are any differencies in the performance during the summer. Another common argument is that "I have always done this way and it works". What they really mean is that I have always done this way and I always get the same result and I am happy with it. But are winterlosses of 15-20% a good result? And some claim that if I give the bees 15-20 kg of honey for the winter then I get nothing for myself. Is 20-25 kg a good result? I would argue no to both these questions and if you are interested to know more then pls let me know. As a teaser we let our 13 hives have 260 kg of honey for this winter and we still got more than enough for ourselfes even if only 7-8 were production units. Furthermore, we go through many of the myths and check if there are scientific evidence to support and in most cases they are thoroughly debunked.
cheers
Mikael