Questions about Feeding Honey Bees
I was just thinking about the supplemental feeds that we feed our bees, in particular I've been wondering about what contaminants might be in the ingredients.
Some of the ingredients we use to feed our honey bees:
Soybean flour --> soybean seeds are treated with neonicotinoid insecticides
Brewers Yeast --> hops and barley are both treated with neonicotinoid insecticides
Vegetable Oil --> canola, sunflower, corn, and most other crops grown for their oils are treated with neonicotinoid insecticides
Sugar (Sucrose and HFCS) --> neonicotinoid insecticides are used on corn, sugar beets, and even sugar cane.
Maybe neonicotinoid insecticides are practically harmless to humans when we ingest it in our food, but aren't honey bees supposed to be sensitive to even very minute quantities of these insecticides?
How do I know that I'm not poisoning my bees when I attempt to improve their diet?
Is there any way to know if any of these or other poisons are in the food we feed our bees?
Re: Questions about Feeding Honey Bees
Just FYI, I found this info on the www.biobees.com website. I don't use HBH so I can't say if this is true. some of the folks said that HBH contains sodium laurel sulfate:
""Sodium lauryl sulfate is used throughout the world for clinical testing as a primary skin irritant. Laboratories use it to irritate skin on test animals and humans so that they may then test healing agents to see how effective they are on the irritated skin.
A study at the Medical College of Georgia , indicated that SLS penetrated into the eyes as well as brain, heart, liver, etc., and showed long-term retention in the tissues. The study also indicated that SLS penetrated young children's eyes and prevented them from developing properly and caused cataracts to develop In adults.
May cause hair loss by attacking the follicle. Classified as a drug in bubble baths because it eats away skin protection and causes rashes and infection to occur.
Is potentially harmful to skin and hair. Cleans by corrosion. Dries skin by stripping the protective lipids from the surface so it can't effectively regulate moisture.
Another extremely serious problem is the connection of SLS with nitrate contamination. SLS reacts with many types of ingredients used in skin products and forms nitrosomines (nitrates). Nitrates are potential cancer-causing carcinogenics.
Because of the alarming penetrating power of SLS, large amounts of these known carcinogens are absorbed through the skin into the body. A variation of SLS is SODIUM LAURETH SULFATE (Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate- SLES). It exhibits many of the same characteristics and is a higher-foaming variation of SLS."
http://www.biobees.com/forum/viewtop...&highlight=hbh
If this is true and HBH contains an industrial degreaser, I don't think I'll be using it any time soon. Dunno, maybe they changed it by now?
Re: Questions about Feeding Honey Bees
Soybean flour -->
soybean seeds are treated with neonicotinoid insecticides
IIRC, how the soy flour is processed affects bee palatability. Expeller processed, and not ground...and toasted?
Maybe neonicotinoid insecticides are practically harmless to humans when we ingest it in our food, but aren't honey bees supposed to be sensitive to even very minute quantities of these insecticides?
The state inspector spoke at my last bee meeting. She works part time for the insect lab at OSU, and part time as the state inspector. She said that if you feed a bee larva 20 milliliters of imidacloprid, the adult bee will be disoriented and have problems navigating. This is an extremely large dose of imidacloprid - even in lab conditions, they have difficulties getting the larvae to eat that much.
Just because a chemical can be used on soybeans, (or any other crop) does not mean that every acre of beans was treated with that chemical.
How do I know that I'm not poisoning my bees when I attempt to improve their diet?
The only way you can know you're not poisoning your bees is if you keep them in a closed environment, and you provide for their every need with stuff you have produced organically.
I think the best we can do is to make an honest effort not to harm our bees, and not let our decisions be ruled by fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
Prior to WWII, sodium fluoride was considered a toxic waste chemical. It was shipped to American POW camps by the trainload, where it was fed to POWs because it affects brain functions and makes people docile. It was also discovered that if children under 12 years of age ingested sodium fluoride, there were minor dental benefits - so now sodium fluoride is added to all municipal water systems. (Congress is supplied with sodium fluoride free bottled water - go figure.)
Due to the nasty effects of sodium fluoride on brain functions, how do you prevent your bees from gathering any sodium fluoride water?
You just do the best that you can, and hope for the best sometimes.
