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Recycling honey

3K views 14 replies 11 participants last post by  dickm 
#1 ·
Hi there.
I have some honey I extracted last fall that I was unable to sell. Can I feed it to some of my weak hives to help them get a jump start? I was told by another "expert" that you shouldn't feed extracted honey back to bees because it causes intestinal problems from small particles of wax mixed in with the honey. Any opinions?
Thanks, Dan
 
#2 ·
Alright Dan,
Don't know wether your "expert" is right or not but what I would do is keep hold of your honey for a little bit longer before you decide to give it back to the bees,you never know when you might be able to sell it and sugar syrup is a cheaper alternative to give to the bees.In reply to (extracted honey being bad for bees) whenever we extract honey there is always a bit left in the spinner that we let drip into a bucket overnight and the next morning we give to the bees,I've never noticed any problems but then again I've never studied a bees intestine.
 
#3 ·
Dan. I've been feeding my bees a 50/50 mixture of my (their) own extracted honey and pure water for years. In my opinion, it's the best and ONLY food any responsible beekeeper should use when feeding bees. Of course, it's best to assure that your colonies always have enough honey already in the hive {"A beekeeper who robs his hives too close is robbing himself" -- one of Farrar's old maxims.}

There's a long riff going on right now in this forum under the title "Victory for Beekeepers", in which various forum members are carrying on about HFCS ( high fructose corn syrup), imitation honey, imitation maple syrup, phony additives in food and other barely-related subjects in marketing and advertising. I've "been there -- done that" many years ago when some of us New Mexico beekeepers had to unite and pass a state law to prevent a phony marketer from selling HFCS as honey. You may find that discussion of some interest.

But back to the point of your question:

Refined or crude cane or beet sugar is not a good food for bees. Its use can promote nosema.

HFCS, which unfortunately is being used all over the world as a food for honeybees, is, IMO, a poor substitute for the best food for honeybees -- HONEY!!!

My bees thrive on it when I have to supplement their natural stores at the end of winter or when I'm feeding nucs or packages.

Mix it 50/50 with pure water, not heating it too much -- only enough to make a uniform solution -- and give the bees the food which is most natural for them -- HONEY!!
 
#7 ·
Hmmmmmmmm.....Stanghellini......how does the pollen trapped off the bees' legs on entrance by a pollen trap become AFB-contaminated? Of course, it's a basic given that a beekeeper should know the source of whatever the bees are working.

skimedickc, I assume you mean "trapped" pollen. In 36 years, I've never fed pollen to my honeybees. I'm lucky to live in an area where pollen is available to the bees almost continuously from March-September. When I first started with the bees, I made up "pollen patties" according to the recipes in the bee books and magazines. Of course, it had no pollen in it. I discontinued that about 24 years ago. It might be an interesting experiment to place a tray of pollen out near a bee yard and see if the bees would harvest it. I suppose they might during a dearth of plant pollen.

There's no real substitute for natural food for honeybees. I think a lot of problems people have with getting packages and nucs established is that they try to do it at the wrong time of year....or in the wrong place....or without a strong enough and well-balanced population of bees.

"Anyone who can make $10,000 keeping bees can make $20,000 doing anything else."
 
#8 ·
>> how does the pollen trapped off the bees' legs on entrance by a pollen trap become AFB-contaminated?

If a hive has AFB, one must assume that the spores are everywhere, including on the bees. Anything from an AFB-infected hive should be assumed contaminated, including pollen. If you're brushing pollen off a bee, you could be brushing off spores at the same time.
 
#9 ·
BeeBear explained what I meant - in an AFB-infected colony, I'm fairly certain that you could isolate AFB off of foragers or any of the house bees. Remember - they spend half their time in the hive (night). They eat and are fed honey, which may have spores. They use honey/nectar to sick pollen grains together when collecting it, so spores can also be in the pollen loads, even though those loads were never in the hive proper. Would it be enough to cause infection in another hive? Maybe, maybe not - depends on how bad the infection is and what the spore load in the colony is like. But this is why there are things like "global patties" which are apparently treated with radiation (gamma?) to destroy any AFB spores in the patty, which includes a little bee pollen as a feeding stimulant to increase bee acceptance.
 
#12 ·
Well Star, I guess I fall into the "irresponsible beekeeper" chapter in your book...and the research entomologists at the Univ of GA bee lab are ignorant as well.

I extract ALL honey produced except what is in the deep and feed HFCS 2:1 in the winter and HFCS 1:1 along with BeePro from Mann Lake in the spring. I guess I'm just irresponsible and stupid.

BubbaBob
 
#13 ·
> Refined or crude cane or beet sugar is not
> a good food for bees. Its use can promote nosema.

I think you got that backwards.

Crude (unrefined) sugar would be worse than
honey in terms of causing digestive problems
in overwintering bees. Refined sugars would
be much better than honey, and much better than
crude sugars.

There has been study after study comparing cane
sugar syrup to beet sugar syrup to HFCS to honey,
and it is the HONEY that tends to cause the
problems like nosema. The others are indistinguishable
from each other in terms of overwinter survival
and colony strength, all being slightly superior
to what one can expect from leaving fall honey
on the hive for overwintering. (All sugars being
refined, of course.)

That said, there are many good beekeepers who
report that "hi-octane" HFCS 65% when used as the
sole feed for dearth feeding and overwintering
bees, tends to shorten lifespans, and should only
be used in a "spring build-up" scenario.

I trap pollen, and feed pollen patties to all
colonies every spring - no problems yet, but
we are very picky about disease and pest monitoring
around here, so I hope we would notice a
problem, and pull any diseased colonies out
of honey and pollen production for treatment
long before they became "disease vectors"
for other hives.

> I guess I'm just irresponsible and stupid.

As long as there is such a significant price
delta between honey and HFCS, I'm "irresponsible
and stupid" all the way to the bank.

See ya at the night depository, BubbaBob! ^.^
 
#15 ·
>>>>Refined or crude cane or beet sugar is not a good food for bees. Its use can promote nosema.<<<<

I think you meant to say: "promotes dysentary". Nosema, caused by a bug is not generated from food. Dysentary is a symptom of the "bug" or poor food. The terms are not interchangeable.

Dickm
 
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