From: RSBrenchley@aol.com
Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 09:02:12 EST
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: fall honey for wintering bees

> For millions of years bees have overwintered successfully on what nature
> provided. Those who were unable to do so were eliminated by natural
> selection a very long time ago. If we go against nature by selecting or
> boosting their feed for them we shall be giving an advantage to weak bees
> that would be better got rid of.

This is what I'm thinking. Bees have been in Britain since not long after
the ice melted, and were presumably in similar climatic areas earlier still.
In many of these areas, heather would have been the main honey source, and
heather honey contains about 2% protein. There's evidence of strains of
A.m.m. which winter better on heather honey than on sugar. Ruttner (The Dark
European Honey Bee, pp 21-4) argues that the feeding of sugar began with the
importation if Italian bees.

I'm not denying that many strains in the UK will probably do better on
sugar; too many people have reported this to ignore it. I wonder, however,
whether we would not end up with better-adapted bees if we stopped doing it,
or at least raised queens exclusively from colonies which wintered without
needing it, and requeened the rest.

Regards,

Robert Brenchley,
Birmingham, UK.