Exposing tons of waste sweet possibly contaminated food to honey bees and other pollinators .
I hear you, in a perfect world, this would not happen,,,, But we are far from perfect.
But their is always more to the story that just Bees and other pollinators.
Firstly, this is in a farming district with fairly large properties. Being agricultural and worked lands we have/had very few wild bee colonies due to limited suitable structures.... The farm in question has 4 wild colonies that I know of. (The rest are removed from structures if causing safety concerns with staff or interfering with farming activities... )
The 12 colonies within flying distance on this farm have been saved and given more suitable accommodations in a more suitable area.
(For both safety for themselves from predators, thief's / honey robbers as well as foraging)
No other bee keepers anywhere near this property, so "product contamination" is of no concern. (Only 2 x bee keepers in the district)
Waste if of food grade and clean of any/all contaminants.
Waste is fed in as fast as possible to an AD plant suppling us with not only a reliable power source but sustainable and green energy.
Water exiting the digester is free of any pathogens and converted in available nutrients, this is pumped directly onto pastures preventing and ground or river water contamination.
Even though efforts are made to process this waste as fast as possible, truth be told,,,, the bees are just waiting for it... as soon as bags are opened- they're on it.
This cannot be done during the night time, it must happen during the day...
Lastly, honey harvested is mostly given back to relocated colonies. (Removed from walls or structures where we cannot remove there own comb.
The rest is given to staff, family, friends and/or used by my own houshold... We have never sold honey nor have I used it as any form of payment so a slightly tainted honey has never resulted in complaints... Actually, some of the best tasting honey I have ever had came from a colony very close to this plant...
We are very proud of all our efforts here......
Bees are important, especially to us farmers who rely on them, not for making honey but to do as nature intended, to pollinate plants...
Thats why We take special care of them,,, even though this feeding process may be slightly flawed and we are responsible for several bee deaths...
The bigger picture shows we are responsible for hundreds of thousands of busy bees on our farms....
If the Nature gods ever had a judgement day, I will be standing proud and be assured that we will be in credit...
Excuse the long winded reply.... We all love bees, but the coin always has two sides... that needs to be taken into consideration....
