Old honey

[craigavonb]

I have just come across several buckets of honey (the beekeeper pass away 6 years ago) The honey shows signs of fermentation, would it be safe to use this as a spring feed

 

[hedgerow pete]

do you have his bees too!

personal i am a great beliver in never feeding honey back to the bees, just incase

 

[mbc]

I wouldnt feed any honey I wasnt 100% sure came fgrom healthy hives.
Mead springs to mind as a good way to recycle this old honey.

 

[Cazza]

I have just come across several buckets of honey (the beekeeper pass away 6 years ago) The honey shows signs of fermentation, would it be safe to use this as a spring feed

Don't do it. It's not worth taking the risk.

(Do I sense a miracle happening.................agreement between beeks????)
Cazza

 

[Russel]

I have just come across several buckets of honey (the beekeeper pass away 6 years ago) The honey shows signs of fermentation, would it be safe to use this as a spring feed

Hi Leslie, As already said it would be unwise to feed your bees this honey, it may contain nasties (dormant spores or some such) that could adversely effect them but may still be ok for humans.

 

[hedgerow pete]

sell the honey to someone on the internet for mead making and use the money to buy sugar for the bees

 

[Midland Beek]

If you have also got the bees that produced the honey, and assuming it was produced in a fairly recent timescale, like in the past couple of seasons, I guess it would be possible to feed the honey back.

However, I would be disinclined to feed any quantity of honey that is showing signs of fermentation. Note that ripe honey sealed in airtight containers would not have fermented. Just a small amount of fermentation might mean the bacteria is through the whole lot, and I don't know how able bees would be to deal with it. Best to err on the side of caution.