The truth behind fondants

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.
Don’t tell me ! tell the WHO maybe they will change their advice in the light of your opinion :unsure:

By the way did you measure the HMF in either the Egyptian honey or your own 40 year old honey ?
 
There is so much of it online, it would be easier for you to just google it, then you can decide what to believe :)

It seems to me there are at least three conflated topics running in this thread.

And - it doesn't matter what one believes, it is a matter of objective facts, as far as reasonably possible.

So, the topics:

1. HMF in honey for humans, and more generally in food for humans.
2. HMF in honey for bees.
3. HMF in feed for bees.

HMF in honey for humans, and more generally in food for humans
Although the EU, WHO and FERA stipulate HMF levels in honey, this appears not to be related to food safety
but more to to with the standard of honey placed on the market - a quality assurance function.
From FERA Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF)
"In honey HMF is a quality marker, Annex II of Council Directive 2001/110/EC lays down composition criteria for honey, including HMF content (determined after processing and blending). HMF is limited to 40 mg/kg in general (except baker’s honey, which is exempt), and 80 mg/kg in honey declared to be from a tropical region.

Fresh honey generally contains less than 15mg/kg HMF, but over 40 mg/kg is used to guarantee the honey has not undergone excessive heating during processing. Fera’s HPLC-UV method can accurately quantify levels of HMF to prove your products satisfy these criteria. Fera’s testing for HMF can be used accurately as a quality guide, aiding consumer trust in your product by verifying quality claims. Testing can also aid wholesalers and retailers, by ensuring the authenticity of the products at any point in the supply chain and providing evidence products offered for sale are true-to-label. "

Overall, there seems to be little concern about HMF levels being harmful to humans; this quotation from https://conovehonakopci.cz/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/HMF-toxicity-2010.pdf seems to be similar to many others:

"In the only long-term carcinogenicity study in rats and mice no tumours or their precursory stages were induced by 5-HMF aside from liver adenomas in female mice, the relevance of which must be viewed as doubtful. Hence, no relevance for humans concerning carcinogenic and genotoxic effects can be derived. The remaining toxic potential is rather low. Various animal experiments reveal that no adverse effect levels are in the range of 80-100 mg/kg body weight and day. Safety margins are generally sufficient. However, 5-HMF exposure resulting from caramel colours used as food additives should be further evaluated"

Although - there is always room for more research.

HMF in Honey for Bees
Working from the FERA numbers, HMF is limited to 40 mg/kg in general, and 80 mg/kg in honey declared to be from a tropical region, one could possible hope that these limits would also be safe for bees - the work reported in https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/12/1/18/pdf seems to bear this out:

" high concentration of hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) (e.g., 15 mg HMF per kg honey) indicates quality deterioration for a wide range of foods. In honey bee colonies, HMF in stored honey can negatively affect bee health and survival. Therefore, in the laboratory, we experimentally determined the effects of HMF on the longevity and midgut integrity of worker Apis mellifera carnica by feeding bees standard diets containing five concentrations of HMF (100, 500, 1000, and 1500 ppm). Simultaneously, we also examined HMF's effect on Nosema ceranae spore counts within infected honey bees. We performed an immunohistochemical analysis of the honey bee midgut to determine possible changes at the cellular level. No correlation was established between HMF concentration and N. ceranae spore counts. Negative effects of HMF on bees were not observed in the first 15 days of exposure. However, after 15 to 30 days of exposure, HMF caused midgut cells to die and an increased mortality of honey bee workers across treatment groups."

Although that is admittedly about HMF levels in general, rather than in honey specifically.

The production of fondant does seem to be a slight issue, in that manfacturers will specifically mention HMF levels - AST group, parent company of Tait and Lyle, specify less than 20ppm for their Bee Fondant. (my maths is probably wrong, but I think that works out to 20mg per kg) https://www.sugarandsyrup.com/emsha...Group-Fondants-Icing-Sugars-v2.compressed.pdf

The real culprit seems to be the production of bee feeds from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which seems to be common in the USA. It seems to be very sensitive to process and temperature and seems to be able to produce huge levels of HMF - http://people.uwplatt.edu/~cornettc/Ag and Food Publish.pdf - Interesting stuff.

My conclusion - HMF probably is not bad for humans, and this is a beekeeping forum. HMF at high levels is harmful to bees, but any fondant (uncoloured, as near to natural as possible to natural sugar) will probably have low HMF. Store it at low temperatures.
 
5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) levels in honey and other food products: effects on bees and human health a 2018 study. We can ingest levels as high as 150mg/kg. This reminds me of studies of which, is best, butter or margarine, the yo yoing of sugar being good then bad. I wasn't at the archaeological dig in Egypt. The 1980's honey would definitely be toxic to the bees, now why would I want to get it tested, I don't rely on the nanny state as I'm not risk averse. People have eaten tinned food which is 50 years old without ill effect. Look at obesity and the BMI calculator, the overweight range used to be 27, then the US in their wisdom reduced it down to 25, making thousands upon thousands of people overweight, overnight, the UK duly followed.
Getting back on track with the bees and HMF levels. If Bakers fondant was really bad for the bees, then there would be reports of colonies dying off at epidemic proportions and bees would be sent off for testing, but this has not happened. In my youth I used to make sugar syrup over the stove, heating it up to dissolve in a saucepan, I wonder what the HMF levels were, but, my bees survived. At the end of the day we have risk informed decision making.
 
Respectfully , you miss the point it is not the honey we are concerned about when feeding bakers fondant it is the bees mortality. It would seem that high HMF feed across the winter could affect the larva, this may explain some of the colony over winter losses.

100% agree, we see this so many times people feeding home made or cheap fondant to bees and wondering why they no longer have them in the spring. And surprisingly the dwindling always seems to occur after adding the fondant. Also the vast amount of beekeepers quoting some very outdated books relating to sugar feeds is incredible, they solider on without any real understanding.
 
The gooey BAKO fondant I have say's not to heat the fondant above 43.3c optionally 40.6c is better, so one can presume that this also means the production is likely to have followed the same course. We know raised HMF is prevalent if excess heat or a longer time is spent at a higher temp but in this case HMF would appear not to be of concern.
 
100% agree, we see this so many times people feeding home made or cheap fondant to bees and wondering why they no longer have them in the spring. And surprisingly the dwindling always seems to occur after adding the fondant.

Yes, definitely it's the fondant that's killing these colonies. Not winter (which is when fondant is put on hives), or varroa (which kills hives over winter in particular), or anything like that.

It's the same with insulation. People add it to their hives just before winter, and some colonies don't survive winter. It's definitely the insulation that kills them.

Correlation = causation. Job done. Science, innit!
 
100% agree, we see this so many times people feeding home made or cheap fondant to bees and wondering why they no longer have them in the spring. And surprisingly the dwindling always seems to occur after adding the fondant. Also the vast amount of beekeepers quoting some very outdated books relating to sugar feeds is incredible, they solider on without any real understanding.
They die if you don't add fondant, it's called starvation. But, that's another story!
 
Yes really, when taking as many calls from beekeepers as equipment suppliers do then these things start to show up. I receive many calls in the spring from concerned individuals who have had problems over wintering.

I strongly believe that there is a link between losses and poor feeding practices where fondants are concerned.
 
Yes really, when taking as many calls from beekeepers as equipment suppliers do then these things start to show up. I receive many calls in the spring from concerned individuals who have had problems over wintering.

I strongly believe that there is a link between losses and poor feeding practices where fondants are concerned.

Which equipment supplier are you?
 
One expects fondant may have been fed but unless one knows the root cause of why a colony has died, it can't simply be blamed due to fondant.
One would need to know a few factors of hive type & set up, bee colony size, health and how any feed was applied, starvation factor and inspection of combs for varroa signs.

More likely as mentioned maybe the poor practice of providing the fondant and the circumstances a colony is left in when it is fed. Placement of fondant above or under the CB, insulation used or not. Various causes can be the down fall of a colony simply putting it down to fondant is easy to say.
 
One expects fondant may have been fed but unless one knows the root cause of why a colony has died, it can't simply be blamed due to fondant.
One would need to know a few factors of hive type & set up, bee colony size, health and how any feed was applied, starvation factor and inspection of combs for varroa signs.

Unless one is a seller of "bee fondant".

In which case one can simply say "Ahhh, you should have bought my bee fondant"
 
I do see the commercial side to this as with Patricks OP, these guys can't simply match the price that others can buy fondant for. Business is lost as often posts are made of good deals to be had.
Next we won't be able to make or mod our hives to our own or an open source design because we aren't buying there stuff.
 
100% agree, we see this so many times people feeding home made or cheap fondant to bees and wondering why they no longer have them in the spring. And surprisingly the dwindling always seems to occur after adding the fondant. Also the vast amount of beekeepers quoting some very outdated books relating to sugar feeds is incredible, they solider on without any real understanding.
Utter tosh I’ve placed bakers fondant on literally hundreds of hives also helping a number of bee farmer friends. Funny how they or me have consistently lower losses than the National average.
 
Which equipment supplier are you?

Modern Beekeeping but also started this in honey production. We still produce and pack honey under Happy Valley Honey.

I am not blaming bakers fondant as such with my comments but bad practises with fondant.

Fondant inverted by acid or heated to high or for to long do cause excessive bee mortality.

Also fondant not package correctly can get damp and start to mould and drip between the frames, also packaging incorrectly leave it dry with the bees unable to feed off it as readily as we would like
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Back
Top