# Does feeding lead to lazy bees?



## jmgi

Sometimes package bees don't need fed right out of the cage, if there is plenty of pollen and nectar coming in, but what if the weather is bad when you install them, and they can't fly for a week or so, which is common for people who get early packages in my area in April or even into May sometimes. Not feeding in that situation just stalls their buildup, or worse. Personally, JMO, I don't think feeding makes the bees lazy, to them syrup is just as good as nectar if they don't have to work that hard for it. If you cut off the syrup, they'll go get nectar if they can fly. I think staying ahead of the bees needs (by feeding) is more important than trying to keep them from being lazy. If you want bees to build up steadily, they need constant food coming in, either artificial or natural.


----------



## crofter

Some of the developing genetics for mite resistance may be counterproductive for honey. I am raising predominately Carniolan bees and with the cold and wet weather here they appear to have virtually shut down brooding. Most are splits that would not have gotten up to a 2 deep hive weight of 90 lbs ( no honey taken and virtually zero mite fall). Last year unless you made some bad decisions you could have taken honey and not had to feed. I dont know if I have an alternative to feeding some years but I am in a very different climate to yours.

Probably with sugar being relatively cheap and honey prices high, people are making an economic decision. Perhaps too there might be a connection that characteristics of todays typical bee is being skewed toward what is good for polination rather than being an easy winter keeper.

Edit, JMGI, I started my post before seeing yours; I don't think you can make bees lazy by feeding either, but if there is no forage............ it is like the old saying "you cant get pants off a bare arth"


----------



## AR Beekeeper

It has been my experience that bees will abandon syrup for nectar when the nectar is produced in amounts that meet their requirements. Bees being fed syrup continue to forage, both for nectar and for pollen.

Bees will reduce brood rearing when the honey stores are reduced below about 20 pounds, and most managers try to keep at least enough to maintain brood production. Naturally, a colony can become honey bound from overfeeding and stop foraging and/or swarm , but that is because a beekeeper made a management error and not because of lazy bees. If bees have storage space and the nectar is present in sufficient quanity they will collect it.


----------



## bluegrass

I will defer to the father of modern beekeeping: " The feeding of bees resembles the noxious influences under which the children of the rich are reared." LL Langstroth.

Any experience beekeeper will agree that honey production and hive densities per yard are declining. Many say it is the loss of good habitat and forage. It quite possibly is a result of our feeding habits. Brother Adam experimented with what he called the "American Italian" bees. His comments where that they were generally lazy and didn't produce honey, in his words they were "the poorest example of a honey bee he ever saw" While I agree that breeding for pollination may be a contributing factor, the practice of pollination requires feeding regularly and likely that is also contributing to the degradation of our bees. It is hard to gauge and breed for production if all hives are fed across the board. 

Brother Adam did feed, but he fed specific amounts at specific times of the year. If I recall correctly all hives got 6 L of syrup on Oct 1st. He developed a measurable calculated system that worked for his area and that is what we all should strive towards.


----------



## Tenbears

If man were meant to fly, He'ld have wings. Creditable when it was first said!


----------



## crofter

Well Bluegrass if you can figure it out, (a measurable calculated feeding system that worked for everone's specific area) I'm sure the world will beat a path to your door. Many of us have been striving towards it but I for one sure as heck didn't see this one coming.


----------



## Michael Palmer

bluegrass said:


> The goal should be to propagate the most productive hives and the ones that can winter with the least resources. Not Feed them so they survive regardless of production and resource consumption.


Are we to allow our least productive colonies perish then? Or should we feed those lazy, lazy bees and re-queen them next year with better stock?


----------



## tank

Im probably not experienced enough to be in this thread but it won't be the first time i have been where Im not supposed to be. I think how you feed has a lot to do with it. from what i have seen with the hive top feeders will make them back fill and just set there and be lazy if they don't swarm. I ran into that this year i fed some splits and they would just back fill and not draw comb or anything. I started open feeding and now they are starting to build. I think if its coming from inside or on top of the hive the house bees just move it around and the field bees just set there because they don't have to do anything. Imo it could be bread into them not to have as many nectar foragers if they have a constant food source in hive long enough. Look at people.


----------



## sqkcrk

bluegrass said:


> Any experience beekeeper will agree that honey production and hive densities per yard are declining. Many say it is the loss of good habitat and forage. It quite possibly is a result of our feeding habits.


I guess you and I don't have the same experiences, because I have not noticed hive densities declining. Commercial yds I am aware of are of the same size as they were 20 years ago.

Laziness is a human trait which we should not attribute to honeybees. It's an unfitting anthropomorphism.


----------



## jmgi

tank, I don't think there's ever a reason to feed until its pouring out the entrance. There are times to feed and times not to feed. There is such a thing as too much feeding of a hive.


----------



## bluegrass

Michael Palmer said:


> Are we to allow our least productive colonies perish then? Or should we feed those lazy, lazy bees and re-queen them next year with better stock?


Like I said in the first post, feed as an emergency measure, many are not doing that anymore, but are feeding just to feed. The Migrators feed all the time, bee producers feed all the time, now the sideliners and hobby guys are also starting to feed all the time. 

I thought I would see you at the Tunbridge fair this year, stopped by the booth, but didn't see you.


----------



## tank

jmgi said:


> tank, I don't think there's ever a reason to feed until its pouring out the entrance. There are times to feed and times not to feed. There is such a thing as too much feeding of a hive.


Yes i totally agree with that and once i get to a number of hives that i can afford the losses i will not feed at all unless i do something to put them at a disadvantage. I was just putting my observation out there. I like these type posts. I can learn a lot from others disagreeing. My point was the way i feed i think has a lot to do with what they do with it i am talking about splits and swarms not big established hives. Imo a good big hive shouldn't need feeding unless i do something like taking to much off or splitting to late.


----------



## bluegrass

sqkcrk said:


> I guess you and I don't have the same experiences, because I have not noticed hive densities declining. Commercial yds I am aware of are of the same size as they were 20 years ago.


I have an early 1900s photo of a bee yard in Morrisville VT that has 50 hives visible. Today a good number of hives for one yard in central VT is a dozen or so... Get closer to the lake and you might get up to 20-25. 

How much syrup are you feeding today compared to 20 years ago?


----------



## gmcharlie

once again we are assigning human qualities to bugs... You assume a bug can get lazy..... They forage less than 2 weeks.... and once you have a few hives for a length of time you realize bees will take the most valuable forage. If there is nectar flowing foragers will ignore your feed. 
If your hive is a dink and foragers are not returning with goods, food in the hive can allow younger non foragers to access it, and build the hive strength up.

Feed or not, its your choice. but don't be silly enough to think you taught them a bad habit.. there are in no way lazy becuase of food.


----------



## bluegrass

Tenbears said:


> If man were meant to fly, He'ld have wings. Creditable when it was first said!


Bees should have needed feeding more so in Langstroths time than now. They were not adapted to the native fauna and the introduced plant species they were used to were far less wide spread over what they are today, with many being invasive.


----------



## bluegrass

gmcharlie said:


> once again we are assigning human qualities to bugs....


How often does a drone get described as lazy? Lazy is just a description. Call it what you want, but we are breeding less productive bees and over-feeding is contributing.


----------



## bluegrass

Some food for thought:

When I started doing cutouts 10 or so years ago one thing I started to notice is that even in the worst of seasons when all hives are on welfare; feral hives are full of honey. Maybe they are good robbers, or maybe they are better foragers.


----------



## sqkcrk

bluegrass said:


> I have an early 1900s photo of a bee yard in Morrisville VT that has 50 hives visible. Today a good number of hives for one yard in central VT is a dozen or so... Get closer to the lake and you might get up to 20-25.
> 
> How much syrup are you feeding today compared to 20 years ago?


Well, sure. I can show you photos of apiaries w/ 300 hives in them in NY from ages ago. Is it the bees that have changed? Or is it modern agriculture. We don't have the dairy farms we once had, the kind that graze cattle on pastures of clover.

I agree that there seems to be more feeding done these days than 20 years ago, but is that because of the bees or because of the price of honey compared to corn syrup, the way the beekeeper manages his bees, and the locations available?


----------



## sqkcrk

bluegrass said:


> Bees should have needed feeding more so in Langstroths time than now. They were not adapted to the native fauna and the introduced plant species they were used to were far less wide spread over what they are today, with many being invasive.


By Langstroth's time honeybees had been living well in North American well over 200 years. I don't know where you are getting your ideas from. They seem somewhat far fetched to me.

Invasive? We are the invasive species. And we brought many of the plants beneficial to bees and plants bees were beneficial to too.


----------



## sqkcrk

bluegrass said:


> Some food for thought:
> 
> When I started doing cutouts 10 or so years ago one thing I started to notice is that even in the worst of seasons when all hives are on welfare; feral hives are full of honey. Maybe they are good robbers, or maybe they are better foragers.


Or maybe no one took half their honey from them 6 months prior.


----------



## tank

gmcharlie said:


> once again we are assigning human qualities to bugs... You assume a bug can get lazy..... They forage less than 2 weeks.... and once you have a few hives for a length of time you realize bees will take the most valuable forage. If there is nectar flowing foragers will ignore your feed.
> If your hive is a dink and foragers are not returning with goods, food in the hive can allow younger non foragers to access it, and build the hive strength up.
> 
> Feed or not, its your choice. but don't be silly enough to think you taught them a bad habit.. there are in no way lazy becuase of food.


We teach animals bad habits all the time its called domesticated take a wild cat when its young keep a food and water in front of it till its full grown and fat and try and get it to eat your mice. It won't happen even though the cat food is not the best for it


----------



## sqkcrk

Honeybees aren't domesticated. And I have never seen a cat that wouldn't jump at a mouse. So, I believe your analogy is flawed. Were bees domesticated, why would they swarm?


----------



## tank

The same reason a dog jumps a fence when the dog down the road is in heat. Come to my house i have a cat to show you  lol


----------



## Joseph Clemens

For some curious reason, the only cutouts I've done, or other's I know, have done, were active, living colonies, not those that had starved to death, or been robbed out by the survivors.

Thinking of the Langstroth quote, in post #5. I think he would have a slightly different opinion, if he had been keeping bees in Tucson, Arizona.

Around here, when nectar is available, my bees will ignore sugar syrup (of whatever strength), left out for them to rob. And they will take it very slowly, or not at all, from internal feeders.

When feed is unnecessary, I try to avoid feeding. Though, if I wan't ready to feed, at a moment's notice, and did fail to do so, I would only be known, as the beekeeper without any bees.


----------



## BEES4U

Feeding Goals in Honey Bee Management.
1. feed to achieve a good winter cluster.
2. feed to sell bulk bees.
3. feed to recuperate population losses due to pesticide kill.
4. feed for queen acceptance
5.feed to draw out new foundation.
6. feed to get certain medications into the hive population.
7. feed to offset the lack of precipitation.
8. feed for winter weight.
9. Do not feed if you are blessed with excellent honey and wintering locations.
10. feed to make pollination frame counts.
11. other.


----------



## Michael Palmer

bluegrass said:


> I thought I would see you at the Tunbridge fair this year, stopped by the booth, but didn't see you.


Shoot. I was there from 5-7 on Saturday evening.


----------



## Michael Palmer

bluegrass said:


> I have an early 1900s photo of a bee yard in Morrisville VT that has 50 hives visible. Today a good number of hives for one yard in central VT is a dozen or so... Get closer to the lake and you might get up to 20-25.
> 
> How much syrup are you feeding today compared to 20 years ago?


The commercial beekeepers in Vermont that I know keep 24-30 colonies/apiary. Then there's my cell building yard with 30+ strong colonies and 64 strong nucs used as brood factories. I fed the cell builders almost nothing last fall, the nucs one gallon each. Harvested 4400 pounds of honey from that yard last August after EAS.

20 years ago...I don't see an increase in the amount fed. 1986 was my worst year ever. 2.5 tons honey and 25,000 pounds of syrup fed. That was 27 years ago.

The amount of sugar I feed is dependent on the goldenrod flow. I don't give syrup as a spring stimulant, but only if the colony is in danger of starvation. I harvest the crop, and leave any light colonies un-supered so they can fill the broodnest on the fall flow. The rest of the beekeepers I know in Vermont do the same.


----------



## sqkcrk

Joseph Clemens said:


> For some curious reason, the only cutouts I've done, or other's I know, have done, were active, living colonies, not those that had starved to death, or been robbed out by the survivors.


Isn't that strange? Isn't that strange. lol


----------



## sqkcrk

bluegrass said:


> The goal should be to propagate the most productive hives and the ones that can winter with the least resources. Not Feed them so they survive regardless of production and resource consumption.


So is your point, if they don't make it on their own let them starve? Because that seems to be what you are saying. Why do we see our bees differently than the way any other farmer sees his livestock?


----------



## bluegrass

sqkcrk said:


> Honeybees aren't domesticated. And I have never seen a cat that wouldn't jump at a mouse. So, I believe your analogy is flawed. Were bees domesticated, why would they swarm?


Not to start this debate again, but from a scientific standpoint honey bees are domesticated and have been since the Pharos started selectively breeding them for honey production. Your analogy is flawed and can be applied to anything. I once knew a guy who was killed by his Jersey bull, I guess cattle are not domesticated... etc. I think of bees like Reindeer. Reindeer are domesticated, they have been bred to produce milk for Laplander's and pull sleds for 1000s of years. But the North American Caribou is the same species as the reindeer, only not domesticated... not selectively bred for certain characteristics. And if you put a caribou next to a reindeer there is a visual difference between them even though they are the same deer. 

In New York it is illegal to possess live wild animals without a permit... so you are either breaking the law or the state considers your bees domesticated. 



Michael Palmer said:


> Shoot. I was there from 5-7 on Saturday evening.


I went on Friday to see the tractors pull. I was going to go again on Saturday, but didn't get around to it.


----------



## bluegrass

sqkcrk said:


> Why do we see our bees differently than the way any other farmer sees his livestock?


Why do we? Why do we buy incomplete nutrition to give them when all other livestock have balanced feeds available to them? If I fed a dairy cow just timothy grass all summer and timothy hay all winter, she would stop producing milk, get sick and die. A cow needs varied grasses for the different nutritional elements they offer. In farming we make up for the deficit by feeding supplemental mixed feeds and silage with the grass and hay. Why do we think bees are different and can survive on just cane sugar?


----------



## sqkcrk

So, you are actually bemoaning the lack of discussion of feeding protien substitute too? 

What is the part of the nectar gathered by bees and is used by bees that is missing from supplementally fed syrup, be it syrup made from cane sugar or corn syrup?


----------



## bluegrass

sqkcrk said:


> By Langstroth's time honeybees had been living well in North American well over 200 years. I don't know where you are getting your ideas from. They seem somewhat far fetched to me.
> .


By Langstroths time the "German black" "European Black" AMM hade been here for hundreds of years... They were poor producers and generally ill tempered. The productive and calm Italians were completely new on the scene and Langstroth was one of the first people on this side of the pond to import them. From old records I have seen he was selling imported Italian queens for $10.00 each. It would be like 300.00 adjusted for inflation. 

You guys completely missed my point with the feral cutouts. 2006 was an exceptionally dry season in central KY. I was feeding around 20 hives because nothing was coming in... The cutouts I was doing were loaded with honey however. My hives didn't have any honey pulled off of them 6 months before. So either the ferals were good at robbing hives being fed, or they were more efficient at making use of the limited nectar sources. I never saw a feral hive on the verge of starvation, which is why they are survivors.


----------



## Daniel Y

bluegrass said:


> Why do we think bees are different and can survive on just cane sugar?


Main reason I have heard is because bee nutrition comes from pollen which they either gather for themselves or is supplied in supplements. I see far more said about the nutrition of pollen sub. not saying it is adequate. but the attention is on it.

So why do I not make a better choice in pollen sub. Because nobody can get it together and decide what it is. So I pick one and feed it. Do I think it is a good one. I don't think anyone knows if it is a good one. My fall back is strong pollen availability and it may be nothing but luck. but there is plenty of that here right through winter. I watched my bees bring in pollen in January. We have some plants here that do not even bloom until after first frost. One of the important ones is rabbit brush. I am not sure my bees need any winter stores.


----------



## sqkcrk

bluegrass,
seems to me I recall starting a Thread asking some of the same questions. Why are we seeing more syrup feeding than in past years? I'm sure Rader can find that Thread.

A while ago a friend of mine and I were chatting about the current state of beekeeping as compared to "the old days". He has been at this almost 50 years. We were talking about folks who do a lot of pollinating. It occured to me that some folks are actually keeping Pollenbees and others are keeping Honeybees.

If feeding bees makes them lazy, then why do they do such a good job in apple orchards and almond groves, etc, etc.


----------



## tbonekel

My five hives are all from swarms. It is very interesting to watch how they expand or not. I have fed, but not that much. The way I look at it, I have given them a little better chance of survival than sitting on a branch somewhere or maybe even a wall cavity. If I don't feed and they don't survive, I will attribute it to a not very productive queen or bad genes or whatever. And there is always the thought that these aren't true "feral" colonies. They may have come from some package colony down they road. Right now, I have really strong hives and some barely getting by. There very well may be some robbing going on, I'm not sure, but so far, this has really been a good learning experience for me. As you can tell from my post number, I am no expert and haven't been on this board very long, but man have I learned a lot!! I am very appreciative of all the knowledge on this board and enjoy reading.


----------



## bluegrass

sqkcrk said:


> bluegrass,
> 
> A while ago a friend of mine and I were chatting about the current state of beekeeping as compared to "the old days". He has been at this almost 50 years. We were talking about folks who do a lot of pollinating. It occured to me that some folks are actually keeping Pollenbees and others are keeping Honeybees.
> 
> If feeding bees makes them lazy, then why do they do such a good job in apple orchards and almond groves, etc, etc.


Because they can't rear brood on sugar water, they need pollen. As you know Apples do not really give them much in the way of nectar, it is primarily a pollen source which is why they pollinate them.

I don't think we are really keeping different bees. The Commercial pollinators requeen their hives every single year. They do not raise the queens themselves, but buy them from queen producers. The queen producers are not in the migratory pollination business and they also sell queens to people who are in the honey business so they are selecting for production, not pollination... The activities of one groups impacts the entire industry.


----------



## sqkcrk

I guess if you think that bees are not productive because, as an industry, we are feeding them into laziness, and that bees are being bred that way, then that is a problem. How do you suggest this situation be addressed?

(what happened to my tag line?)


----------



## jim lyon

bluegrass said:


> I think way too much feeding goes on now days.... When I started 25 years ago you almost never heard of people feeding their bees... They got the syrup that was left in the package after shipment and that was it... I am still of the opinion that the left over syrup is all they need to get started. Now days people feed, feed, feed.... Then wonder why their hives do not produce surplus honey? It is because they don't have to collect nectar so why should they?


Assuming this is true, then the question becomes "why do you think it is that collectively all beekeepers have decided to do "way too much feeding"? I think we can eliminate the following.
A: feeding is fun
B: feeding is cheap
Theories?


----------



## Joseph Clemens

For me, it is simply easier to do beekeeping with bees than without bees.

My first decade, beekeeping, back here in the desert Southwest. I did little more than create walk-away splits (starting with one cutout), and occasionally harvest a few frames of honey. I did no feeding, and very little colony manipulation (other than the splits). I also believe I could still maintain colonies in this same fashion (without feeding). However, I now, regularly. produce nucs and raise queens. These additional manipulations seem to interfere with most colonies abilities to collect sufficient surplus to remain entirely independent. After all, I'm robbing them regularly of brood, nurse bees, pollen, and honey. Nucs and queens need these resources, or I couldn't produce them. If I weren't frequently robbing colonies with resources, and using those resources to create nucs and queens, I would likely be able to produce more honey and feed less (or not at all). And I wouldn't characterize or anthropomorphize my bees, as lazy, since they're doing much more work for me, than if I just left them alone and managed them for a honey crop.


----------



## bluegrass

Daniel Y said:


> Main reason I have heard is because bee nutrition comes from pollen which they either gather for themselves or is supplied in supplements. I see far more said about the nutrition of pollen sub. not saying it is adequate. but the attention is on it.
> 
> So why do I not make a better choice in pollen sub. Because nobody can get it together and decide what it is. So I pick one and feed it. Do I think it is a good one. I don't think anyone knows if it is a good one. My fall back is strong pollen availability and it may be nothing but luck. but there is plenty of that here right through winter. I watched my bees bring in pollen in January. We have some plants here that do not even bloom until after first frost. One of the important ones is rabbit brush. I am not sure my bees need any winter stores.


Most commercial pollen subs offer Protein, fat and carbohydrate, and some have Vit A, C and Iron added to them. Honey on the other hand offers:
Vit C
Riboflavin
Niacin
B6
Folate
Pantothenic Acid
Choline
Bataine
Calcium
Iron
Zinc
Phos
Mag
Potassium
Copper
Sodium
etc, etc,etc.

No commercial bee feed comes anywhere close to meeting the nutritional elements that honey offers.


----------



## sqkcrk

So what do you think we should be doing that we aren't? Seems like I have asked you this question a couple times in a couple different ways. Did I miss your answer?


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

> I recall starting a Thread asking some of the same questions. Why are we seeing more syrup feeding than in past years? 

Perhaps this one:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...much-feeding-going-on&highlight=syrup+feeding

Yes, _Bluegrass _participated in that one ...


----------



## jmgi

sqkcrk said:


> So what do you think we should be doing that we aren't? Seems like I have asked you this question a couple times in a couple different ways. Did I miss your answer?


I'm still waiting for that answer too. Bluegrass may think overfeeding is rampant, and maybe it is by a small minority of beeks, possibly some beginners, but overall what is the alternative, I'd like to hear about it?


----------



## jim lyon

The question isn't how many trace minerals are contained in honey. The question I am asking is why, collectively, would beekeepers change their management philosophies in the past 25 years. I'm not getting an answer to that one either.


----------



## bluegrass

jim lyon said:


> "why do you think it is that collectively all beekeepers have decided to do "way too much feeding"? I think we can eliminate the following.
> A: feeding is fun
> B: feeding is cheap
> Theories?


On a commercial pollination level feeding is necessary to remain competitive and keep the good contracts. 
On a hobby level people feed to much because the first advice they get from the bee club or who ever else they ask about starting out is to feed, feed feed. A secondary element is that they are afraid their bees will die if they don't feed, but they are not taught how to evaluate the need for feed, just told to feed. 

Getting back to Mark's question: Be the change you want to see in the world. Think globally act locally. A good start would be at home. I am sure as a commercial guy and due to the cost of HFCS you feed as little as possible. You and Mike are probably exceptions to the rule because the syrup cuts into your bottom line. Many are feeding as much as the hives will take.... filling them with 100 lbs of syrup. Over generations the bees will get used to that surplus. Over time I am sure that it has impacted their ability to put up surplus honey. For many hobbyists it is hard to break the ties from the commercial side, we depend on commercially produced bees to repopulate winter dieouts. New beeks are dependent on the package industry because that is the only way demand can be met. 

I think we need to organize into a group that works together with a common goal of propagating genetically diverse, productive bees. I am currently working on a queen exchange program that I hope to have up and running by next spring. Instead of buying mass produced queens where they all have been selected from one or two hives and are sisters, we breed queens among our selves and exchange them to improve genetic diversity in your own yards. for example: I want some queens from you so I purchase a credit and get the queens, you ship the queens so you receive a credit. Then you want queens from somebody else so you use your credit to get your queens, now they have a credit. etc.


----------



## bluegrass

jim lyon said:


> The question isn't how many trace minerals are contained in honey. The question I am asking is why, collectively, would beekeepers change their management philosophies in the past 25 years. I'm not getting an answer to that one either.


It was already touched on in an earlier post: Syrup is cheap, honey is worth more... so beeks started selling all the honey and feeding syrup instead. From there it is an industry wide downward spiral.


----------



## bluegrass

Rader Sidetrack said:


> > I recall starting a Thread asking some of the same questions. Why are we seeing more syrup feeding than in past years?
> 
> Perhaps this one:
> http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...much-feeding-going-on&highlight=syrup+feeding
> 
> Yes, _Bluegrass _participated in that one ...


Now that you link it I do remember that thread. I had to read through and make sure I was being consistent with this one... Sometimes I change my mind more often than my underwear. It is 2 years old so it is time to discuss the topic again... Though I am more interested in if anybody else thinks that excessive feeding might lead to poor production?


----------



## Michael Bush

>It has been my experience that bees will abandon syrup for nectar when the nectar is produced in amounts that meet their requirements. 

I have only rarely seen bees that would abandon syrup for nectar. Most in my observation will store the nectar until the brood nest is backfilled and the bees swarm.

>Brother Adam did feed, but he fed specific amounts at specific times of the year.

"The reader will by now have drawn the conclusion that stimulative feeding, apart from getting the foundations drawn out in the brood chamber, plays no part in our scheme of bee-keeping. This is in fact so." --Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey, Brother Adam 

Many of the great beekeepers of the past:

"Q. When is the best time to feed the bees? 

"A. The best thing is never to feed them, but let them gather their own stores. But if the season is a failure, as it is some years in most places, then you must feed. The best time for that is just as soon as you know they will need feeding for winter; say in August or September. October does very well, however, and even if you haven't fed until December, better feed then than to let the bees starve." 

--C.C. Miller, A Thousand Answers to Beekeeping Questions, 1917 

"Very many, at the present time, seem to think that brood rearing can be made to forge ahead much faster by feeding the bees a teacupful of thin sweet every day than by any other method; but from many experiments along this line during the past thirty years I can only think this a mistaken idea, based on theory rather than on a practical solution of the matter by taking a certain number of colonies in the same apiary, feeding half of them while the other half are left "rich" in stores, as above, but without feeding and then comparing "notes" regarding each half, thus determining which is the better to go into the honey harvest...results show that the "millions of honey at our house" plan followed by what is to come hereafter, will outstrip any of the heretofore known stimulating plans by far in the race for bees in time for the harvest." --A Year's work in an Out Apiary, G.M. Doolittle. 

"Probably the single most important step in management for achieving colony strength, and one most neglected by beekeepers, is to make sure the hives are heavy with stores in the fall, so that they emerge from overwintering already strong early in the spring" --The How-To-Do-It book of Beekeeping, Richard Taylor 

"The feeding of bees for stimulating brood-rearing in early spring is now looked upon by many as of doubtful value. Especially is this true in the Northern States, where weeks of warm weather are often followed by 'Freeze up.' The average beekeeper in the average locality will find it more satisfactory to feed liberally in the fall-- enough, at least so that there shall be sufficient stores until harvest. If the hives are well protected, and the bees well supplied with an abundance of sealed stores, natural brood rearing will proceed with sufficient rapidity, early in the spring without any artificial stimulus. The only time that spring feeding is advisable is where there is a dearth of nectar after the early spring flow and before the coming of the main harvest." --W.Z. Hutchinson, Advanced Bee Culture 

"While it is often advocated that stimulative feeding be resorted to early, in order to build the colonies up to a sufficient strength, the author inclines to the belief that colonies in two stories will build up just as rapidly if there is an abundance of sealed honey in the hive, as is possible with stimulative feeding. Sometimes it seems that uncapping a portion of the honey has a stimulating effect, but feeding in small quantities, for the purpose of stimulating the bees to greater activity, rarely seems necessary..."--Frank Pellett, Practical Queen Rearing 

I don't know that feeding my cats makes them lazy, but it does keep them from hunting nearly as much and from eating very many mice... I don't see that it's that different with bees. I don't think feeding them changes them fundamentally (e.g. makes them lazy), but it removes their incentive to forage. I see no reason to feed when there there is nectar available.


----------



## Saltybee

If feeding made them lazy then a good long flow would make them lazy.
Bees work a bloom until it is gone, even missing a bloom by failing to switch species. Syrup is the bloom that never stops. When feeding let it run out, unless it is for a specific reason/timeframe. (queen rearing, etc.)
My theory, no proof.


----------



## bluegrass

Thanks for the well put together post Michael.


----------



## sqkcrk

bluegrass said:


> Getting back to Mark's question: I am sure as a commercial guy and due to the cost of HFCS you feed as little as possible. You and Mike are probably exceptions to the rule because the syrup cuts into your bottom line.
> 
> I think we need to organize into a group that works together with a common goal of propagating genetically diverse, productive bees.


Thank you for the answer.

Are you assuminmg Michael Palmer doesn't feed syrup? And doesn't Michael Palmer produce his own queens? Are you suggesting that his feeding his bees is the reason his 2013 production was half what it should have been? He blames the weather.


----------



## BEES4U

Re:
I don't think we are really keeping different bees. The Commercial pollinators requeen their hives every single year. They do not raise the queens themselves, but buy them from queen producers. The queen producers are not in the migratory pollination business and they also sell queens to people who are in the honey business so they are selecting for production, not pollination... The activities of one groups impacts the entire industry. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The queen producers are not in the migratory pollination business and they also sell queens to people who are in the honey business so they are selecting for production, not pollination... 

FYI: Queen breeders and bulk bee producers hold some of the biggest pollination contracts!


----------



## bluegrass

sqkcrk said:


> Thank you for the answer.
> 
> Are you assuminmg Michael Palmer doesn't feed syrup? And doesn't Michael Palmer produce his own queens? Are you suggesting that his feeding his bees is the reason his 2013 production was half what it should have been? He blames the weather.


No I know he feeds as needed. His honey production is down because VT had a wet lousy spring and summer. The fall flow is still on so calling it "Down" at this point would be premature.


----------



## WBVC

gmcharlie said:


> If your hive is a dink .


OK...yet again my ignorance comes to the fore front. Could someone please define what constitutes a "dink" hive.

Thanks


----------



## sqkcrk

bluegrass said:


> No I know he feeds as needed.


I don't know anyone who doesn't feed as needed. I guess you do. How many commercial beekeepers do you know? How many of those you know do you know their feeding practices? Their requeening practices? Of the 8 or so commercial beekeepers I have known and worked w/ I don't know one which requeens annually. I do know one who has been requeening a number of his colonies this late in the Summer. Maybe he intends to requeen all of them, I don't know. I question whether the practice is quoite the way you describe. I started a Thread in the Commercial/Pollinator Forum to see what those who might answer have to say about what they do and how they see the annual requeening question amongst commercial beekeepers.

Do we really have enough queen rearers to annually requeen all of the colonies that go to CA to service almonds? I can't imagine that.


----------



## bluegrass

BEES4U said:


> The above statement is very inaccurate and insulting!
> FYI: Queen breeders and bulk bee producers hold some of the biggest pollination contracts!


Well then consider yourself insulted.


----------



## sqkcrk

WBVC said:


> OK...yet again my ignorance comes to the fore front. Could someone please define what constitutes a "dink" hive.
> 
> Thanks


A drone layer is a dink. A colony which is not producing bees, honey, and pollen stores is a dink. If you looked into a hive and thought to yourself, "This hive is a dud.", that's a dink.  It's a technical term. Y'all don't have that word where you come from?


----------



## gmcharlie

Dink, small hive failing to produce or grow.

Michael comments quoted from cc miller and such are historically interesting.. but nothing more. In the past a buggy whip was an invaluable tool...

the success of the fathers is fantastic, no doubt. without them where would we be? but we no longer look at goodyear rubber as the benchmark. and I feel its the same with beekeeping. The past is the past.... 
I don't think for one second that feeding is a problem... I also think that feeding bees 100's of Lbs of honey is penny wise and pound foolish. but it is a choice feel free to pick up any wild bees that have never seen HFCS... and then compare the production to fed bees.... You will be blown out of the water. If you choose to have bees and let them take care of themselves, fine..... But don't disparage those who go to great lengths to manage there bees and produce a profit.


----------



## WBVC

jim lyon said:


> Assuming this is true, then the question becomes "why do you think it is that collectively all beekeepers have decided to do "way too much feeding"? I think we can eliminate the following.
> A: feeding is fun
> B: feeding is cheap
> Theories?


As a new beekeeper I feed from fear of dead hives. I read and follow this forum....what seems to me to be a common theme is...feed in fall so your bees don't die overwinter, feed in winter so they don't die before spring. Feed in the spring so they will have enough bees to bring in enough honey for us to harvest some. Take off the feeders when honey supers for human consumption are on...take off the feeders in Aug and feed as there may well be a dearth.
The result is it seems most of the time feeders are on.
I must admit it seems a bit bizarre to keep bees as a means of converting sugar syrup into honey...both costly and time consuming.

Am I feeding...yes. Why...I don't want my bees to die. Do I have enough experience to know when a hive is OK or not...no

Thanks to all who post...it is a huge learning curve.


----------



## bluegrass

In Beekeepers Lament John Miller describes his re-queening operation in that he rotates 3000 hive through at a time so that by the end of the season all hives are requeened. 

I feed if needed, I will evaluate stores in November and the light hives get fondant just to get them through so they can be re-queened come spring in hopes of a better year. 

In a few short months we will start to see lots of posts about dead bees inches from stores. It is too bad that the bee lab doesn't evaluate if bees are malnourished. I wonder how many of those "Inches from stores" deadouts are dead because they are too malnourished on sugar syrup to move to the next cell.


----------



## Cleo C. Hogan Jr

sqkcrk said:


> Y'all don't have that word where you come from?


Mark... "Y"ALL", I thought in New York you said, "Youse guys", Maybe picked that up in South Carolina? Maybe from Jon, and he got it from Moore Haven?

To the question at hand, I am not a proponent of feeding unless starting a new colony, absolutely necessary for their survival, or as required for a specific operation. (For instance, buildup for pollination, queen raising, etc.) 

I doubt that bees become lazy, they don't live that long, and unless a specific course is sustained over a period of generations, that trait would not be carried over. I liken it more to "welfare bees" than lazy bees, and there is a difference. Bees taking sugar syrup can be very productive, store a lot of sugar water, in a short period of time. So, they are not lazy, they are welfare bees, taking the easy way to get something to make honey from.

I am with Michael on this one. I don't necessarily see bees leaving feeding even if abundant nectar is nearby. 

cchoganjr


----------



## Riskybizz

bluegrass > "I never saw a feral hive on the verge of starvation, which is why they are survivors. " I am still trying to grasp the logic behind this statement. It appears to offer the assumption that all feral bees gather and store more nectar that our kept bees. This might be proven true in a controlled study based upon scientific observations but in this context it fails because of simply logic. I receive numerous calls from individuals asking me to go remove the bees from their building or structure. These people contact me for the simple reason that they have bees. That would be the only reason for their call. I will gladly go remove those feral bees for a fee for my services. The other side of this coin that bluegrass has neglected to mention is that there are many, many feral colonies that have prospered to a degree and then perished for whatever reason. Bluegrass and I are not receiving those calls because those bees are no loner alive to report and remove. At best, I always felt that when I remove a feral colony of honeybees from a building, that I am dealing with probably 50% or less of the original feral colonies in a general area that were once alive.


----------



## beemandan

Adding syrup doesn’t alter the bees’ genetic predisposition to hoard honey. To suggest otherwise demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of genetics.


----------



## VolunteerK9

Riskybizz said:


> bluegrass > "I never saw a feral hive on the verge of starvation, which is why they are survivors. "


Reminds me of when I used to be a farrier. People would request a particular type of horseshoes or a technique performed because someone had claimed that 'it must be THE way because you never see crippled up Mustangs in the wild". I would smile and simply reply, 'because the crippled ones have already been eaten'. Same thing with bees, ferals without any stores have already starved out and are dead. Could be why you never see starving feral hives.


----------



## rhaldridge

gmcharlie said:


> Dink, small hive failing to produce or grow.
> 
> Michael comments quoted from cc miller and such are historically interesting.. but nothing more. In the past a buggy whip was an invaluable tool...


I'm not sure bees have changed as much as buggies have.

My newbie opinion is that it isn't so much a question of whether one should feed or not, but a question of *what* one should feed if it becomes necessary. From my reading, it seems likely that economic considerations are responsible for most syrup feeding. In most years hives do produce adequate amounts of honey in summer to see a colony through, but I think it's only natural, if it's your livelihood, to take the risk and harvest that honey, and then replace it with syrup if the fall flow doesn't pan out.

But there may be less obvious financial advantages to leaving adequate honey stores. This is what Tim Ives does, and because of his approach, he seems to get fairly massive harvests of honey from his overwintered-with-lots-of-honey hives. According to him, his 3 deep system allows the bees to brood up early enough to take full advantage of flows that other local beekeepers don't even realize exist. How many beekeepers have 400 lb. seasons in any of their hives?

I don't know for sure, but it seems likely to me that the calculation in practice is more complicated than honey-expensive and syrup-cheap.

But I'm a beginner, so I could be completely wrong.


----------



## sqkcrk

bluegrass said:


> In Beekeepers Lament John Miller describes his re-queening operation in that he rotates 3000 hive through at a time so that by the end of the season all hives are requeened.
> 
> I feed if needed, I will evaluate stores in November and the light hives get fondant just to get them through so they can be re-queened come spring in hopes of a better year.
> 
> In a few short months we will start to see lots of posts about dead bees inches from stores. It is too bad that the bee lab doesn't evaluate if bees are malnourished. I wonder how many of those "Inches from stores" deadouts are dead because they are too malnourished on sugar syrup to move to the next cell.


Why do you requeen a colony you got through the Winter?
"Inches from stores."? I don't ever recall a colony that starved inches from stores below the stores. Colonies have been starving inches from stores one comb over for ages, I would imagine.


----------



## sqkcrk

Cleo,
I'm originally from Maryland. I don't recall using y'all growing up. My Mom and Dad were from Iowa and Mom knew her English. You was singular and plural to her, as it is in proper useage. And not just high falutin' language.

I probably assimilated it into my lexicon when I left home and lived in NC long before I met Jon. Does he say y'all? I never got used to youse or youse guys. I am a ferinner wherever I go.


----------



## sqkcrk

VolunteerK9 said:


> Could be why you never see starving feral hives.


And they are the most disease resistant bees on the planet, ferals. You never find a feral colony w/ AFB.

Yeah, right. Because wax moths get in there and clean that sucker out before it get occupied again.


----------



## bluegrass

Risky you are touching on my point. At some point all ferals were managed bees, some swarmed and became feral, many of those swarms don't make it. Why not? Because they are first and foremost livestock and they don't have what it takes to survive on their own. Perhaps they came out of an operation that fed them all the time and they just didn't forage enough to carry them through... maybe they are not the most efficient at foraging so in a dry year they have a hard time finding nectar. But the ones you and I get calls on did survive the same conditions that killed that other 50%. In a dry year they continue to produce well even when our home hives are struggling.... they have something that the 50% that die did not have. 

We see the same things in our home hives, some hive brood up fast and produce more honey than the hive right next to it. 

Mark: I requeen them because I don't like bees that need to be fed. I see no value in a hive that can't produce enough for them selves and me. The point of a honey bee is to produce honey. They are nice to look at and fun to watch, but in the end I want them to produce honey.


----------



## Joseph Clemens

But, surviving/thriving, feral colonies may, not necessarily, be the better foragers. Instead, they may just be better at robbing other nearby colonies, and protecting it as they accumulate it for themselves.

So, by propagating those colonies that thrive in hard times, we may just be promoting colonies that are better robbers.


----------



## Matt in OC

rhaldridge said:


> I'm not sure bees have changed as much as buggies have.
> 
> But there may be less obvious financial advantages to leaving adequate honey stores. This is what Tim Ives does, and because of his approach, he seems to get fairly massive harvests of honey from his overwintered-with-lots-of-honey hives. According to him, his 3 deep system allows the bees to brood up early enough to take full advantage of flows that other local beekeepers don't even realize exist. How many beekeepers have 400 lb. seasons in any of their hives?


I read another thread on this site where Tim Ives made reference to Randy Oliver's website about "Fat bees" at http://scientificbeekeeping.com/bee-nutrition/. Since this particular thread is about feeding bees then those three long articles on bee nutrition seem to fit. Here's one particular paragraph I find interesting:

"O.K., in my roundabout way, I’m finally going to get to my point. Bees not only store pollen and honey in the combs, but they also store food reserves in their bodies. This is done mainly in the form of a compound called “vitellogenin.” vitellogenin is classed as a “glycolipoprotein,” meaning that is has properties of sugar (glyco, 2%), fat (lipo, 7%), and protein (91%) (Wheeler & Kawooya 2005). Vitellogenin is used by other animals as an egg yolk protein precurser, but bees have made it much more important in their physiology and behavior, using it additionally as a food storage reservoir in their bodies, to synthesize royal jelly, as an immune system component, as a “fountain of youth” to prolong queen and forager lifespan, as well as functioning as a hormone that affects future foraging behavior!"

My newbie comment is that if this vitellogenin is really a "fountain of youth" for bees then that's a good thing. Tim doesn't feed but he's getting benefits he attributes to vitellogenin. In my reading of Randy's articles it seems that the more bees you can get in a hive the more of this v stuff you're gonna have in there. Tim's theory is to put 7 supers on 3 deep brood boxes and he creates these "super" hives with over 100,000 bees. He posts pictures on Facebook and uTube. So everything in the hive gets better when there are more bees in there.

My conclusion, let hives get bigger. Give them more space. Don't split as often and thereby weaken the hives that are just getting to the critical mass and thereby limit the vitellogenin factor.


----------



## Harley Craig

Joseph Clemens said:


> But, surviving/thriving, feral colonies may, not necessarily, be the better foragers. Instead, they may just be better at robbing other nearby colonies, and protecting it as they accumulate it for themselves.
> 
> So, by propagating those colonies that thrive in hard times, we may just be promoting colonies that are better robbers.



Ferrell colonies typically get to keep all of their honey to themselves as well.


----------



## Michael Bush

>Michael comments quoted from cc miller and such are historically interesting.. but nothing more. In the past a buggy whip was an invaluable tool...

When they wrote those comments, they were raising honey bees, of the same genetics as us, in Langstroth hives, the same as us, and experimenting with feeding white sugar syrup, the same as us. I don't see the comparison. We don't drive buggies any more. We still keep honey bees in Langstroth hives and are discussing feeding the same substances as they were discussing.


----------



## bluegrass

Joseph Clemens said:


> But, surviving/thriving, feral colonies may, not necessarily, be the better foragers. Instead, they may just be better at robbing other nearby colonies, and protecting it as they accumulate it for themselves.
> 
> So, by propagating those colonies that thrive in hard times, we may just be promoting colonies that are better robbers.


Maybe, or maybe they are more efficient foragers. Perhaps they collect nectar from sources that other colonies ignore even in hard times. Perhaps they go the extra 500 yards that other hives didn't. 

Feeding can incite robbing... why can't feeding incite an unwillingness to forage?


----------



## bluegrass

Harley Craig said:


> Ferrell colonies typically get to keep all of their honey to themselves as well.


I don't take honey off of light hives...so they get to keep all theirs too.


----------



## sqkcrk

We don't drive buggys anymore, but Amish do. Every buggy has a buggy whip too. Very few Amish keep bees. WAround here anyway. when I lived in Ohio (uh hi uh) quite a few Amish in Holmes County kept bees. Hardly any had more than two or three. And, as an Inspector, I was probably into their hives that year as many times as they were, if not more. For what that's worth.


----------



## sqkcrk

bluegrass said:


> Maybe, or maybe they are more efficient foragers. Perhaps they collect nectar from sources that other colonies ignore even in hard times. Perhaps they go the extra 500 yards that other hives didn't.
> 
> Feeding can incite robbing... why can't feeding incite an unwillingness to forage?


Perhaps they are nartrower and tall and not that large as a colony to begin with. Therefore more prone to swarm. Perhaps.


----------



## Cleo C. Hogan Jr

sqkcrk said:


> I am a ferinner wherever I go.


They laugh at my accent everywhere I go.

cchoganjr


----------



## beemandan

We put our hives near the ground…for our convenience. Bees usually choose a higher nesting site. The entrances to our hives are typically larger than bees prefer. Are we producing bees that will eventually be unable to find an appropriate nesting site? A bunch of wimpy bees…unable to forage for themselves…unable to choose a nesting site…that cannot fend off exotic parasites…..feedlot bees.
The solution……ban beekeeping! That will solve it!


----------



## sqkcrk

Your new name beeBANdan.


----------



## bluegrass

That must be why we find ferals in water meters. All those years of on the ground beekeeping.

I prefer primerib, but I will eat tuna fish.


----------



## beemandan

bluegrass said:


> That must be why we find ferals in water meters. All those years of on the ground beekeeping.


Proof positive! I rest my case. 
It makes just as much sense as feeding sugar syrup leading to lazy bees.


----------



## beemandan

sqkcrk said:


> Your new name beeBANdan.


Or....Banbeedan....its gotta ring to it.


----------



## jim lyon

A few observations. I do think there is little doubt that more feeding is being done than there was 25 years ago. The primary reasons are that there has never been such a wide discrepancy between honey and syrup prices (currently nearly $2.00 per lb.). And secondly with an annual demand for a million and a half large hives in California each February we are asking more of our bees than we ever have before and stimulative feeding is one of the best tools to achieve that goal. 
Is honey better for bees to winter on than sucrose or fructose? In most cases I would say yes but it should be pointed out that not all honeys are great winter feed. A hard granulating honey in a cold climate is far less palatable to bees than supplemental feed properly stored in combs.
It's a separate and highly speculative argument, though, to equate more feeding with lower honey production. We feed an average of around 40 lbs. of syrup per hive per year and I would estimate that the bees consume about that many additional pounds of honey from September through the start of the main northern flow in June but they are doing LOTS of brood production through these months and the requirements of the hives are great. We don't feed anymore than is necessary to continue to stimulate brood production though. Without lots of feed you can't raise lots of bees and without lots of bees you can't pollinate or raise lots of honey. 
The analogy of comparing bees to a larger domesticated animal is really a reach. An individual bee may well have acquired habits similar to a larger animal but that hardly means you can change the instinctive hoarding behavior of a colony of bees with constantly emerging (and short lived) new bees and any argument to the contrary is just speculation. So how much does a good beekeeper feed? As Mark said, "no more than you have to". Just make darned sure they don't run out, or even run short or the result may well be devastating to the hive. There simply isn't always going to be something out there for them to forage on.


----------



## Tim Ives

I cannot get sugar fed raised bees/ queens to preform the same as unadulterated bees. I don't even waste my time trying anymore. Junk food= Junk bees........


----------



## gmcharlie

Yup Amish have the whips.. and use em.. and several people here still do the old fashioned methods works for them.. Great!... but also note that a lot of the world now drive cars.

In Millers time, running to the IGA and picking up sugar at 1/5 the cost of honey was not an option. I don't think Rev Langstroth ever tried to have bees ready for almonds.... Point was simple times are much different. Yup cars still have wheels like buggies, and we still use Lang boxes. but now we have turn signal, and HFCS.....
Its up to each for how they want to keep bees. unfortunatly we all want to be the "know it all" with the answer. I prefer to listen to the other guys and make up my own mind...... and for the most part not cast an aspersions on the others.... My goals are different than say Jim Lyons and Solomon Parkers both........ Things that work for Guys like Tim Ives and MB don't work well in my yard.... I still like to read and ponder and maybe even try some of there methods. some I have found to be right, others pure rubbish...... Just smile and say thanks for the info... instead of claiming there way is wrong. I find quoting a old book very interesting... but not always relevant.... were they the gospel, we would all still be driving those buggies much more like the Amish...


----------



## sqkcrk

beemandan said:


> Or....Banbeedan....its gotta ring to it.


dandabeebanman How's that?


----------



## beemandan

sqkcrk said:


> dandabeebanman How's that?


This is it!
My new motto....
No more wimpy bees! Ban Beekeeping!
What are the chances that Barry will let me change my moniker?


----------



## Saltybee

Replacing honey with syrup may or may not be significant. The loss of the pollen that goes out with the honey can't be good for next spring. If you are feeding to replace honey then you should remember to replace the pollen also.


----------



## rhaldridge

gmcharlie said:


> Yup Amish have the whips.. and use em.. and several people here still do the old fashioned methods works for them.. Great!... but also note that a lot of the world now drive cars.
> 
> In Millers time, running to the IGA and picking up sugar at 1/5 the cost of honey was not an option. I don't think Rev Langstroth ever tried to have bees ready for almonds.... Point was simple times are much different. Yup cars still have wheels like buggies, and we still use Lang boxes. but now we have turn signal, and HFCS.....


Well, okay, but technological advances aren't always a good thing.

Sure, sugar today is much cheaper, but kids today are much fatter and have many more metabolic health problems than was the case 50 years ago.

You have to be selective about adopting new technology.

In my opinion, you also have to keep in mind the fact that bees haven't changed much in the last several million years. The old books are still full of useful information, and one thing I've noticed about the old beekeepers is that while they didn't have the scientific technology we have today, they compensated by observing more intensely. These things may be linked. Blind people compensate by developing their other senses, and without electron microscopes and mass spectrometers, the old beekeepers had to develop remarkable observational skills.

Sure, you can find stuff in the old books to disagree with. As far as I can tell by reading BeeSource, beekeepers will do exactly the same thing with any modern book as well.

Anyway, my point is that while beekeeping practices have changed, bees haven't. If you compare the results the old beekeepers got with the results modern beekeepers get, you might legitimately wonder if maybe we've taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Besides, does anyone really believe that bees raised on sugar are exactly as healthy as bees raised on honey?


----------



## sqkcrk

Well Ray, I don't know about raised on sugar, but, sustained by sugar syrup is tried and true. Leastwise that's what I was taught back in ancient times. The theory is that sugar syrup has fewer trace elements than honey. Such things are indigestible and may lead to dysentery.

Feeding of syrup at this time of year won't be used to raise brood and much as it will be used to fuel the adult bees. That which is fed in the Spring will help fuel the colony activity in all aspects of the growing colony.


----------



## Michael Bush

>Besides, does anyone really believe that bees raised on sugar are exactly as healthy as bees raised on honey? 

A lot of people do, actually. But the evidence would be that sugar syrup kills off the microbes that protect them from things like Nosema, AFB, EFB, chalkbrood...

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0033188
http://www.beeuntoothers.com/index.php/beekeeping/gilliam-archives


----------



## rhaldridge

Mark, I agree that it's dumb to let bees starve because you're afraid of using sugar. On the other hand, I have a suspicion that it's smart to manage bees (if you're in a position to do so) so that you only rarely have to feed sugar. I realize that large scale migratory beekeepers really aren't in a position to let bees live on nothing but honey and pollen.

I guess I just have a hard time believing that the substance bees evolved to eat isn't a better diet for them than a substance they would rarely encounter in the wild.

I've recently read material that makes me think that perhaps the pollen in honey has some beneficial influence on bees' ability to withstand other stressors, like pesticides from outside the hive, and acaricides used inside the hive.

http://phys.org/news/2013-04-high-fructose-corn-syrup-tied-worldwide.html

The study, I should point out, isn't saying that HFCS is bad for bees, just that it might not be as good for bees as honey, because it contains no pollen, and this would also be true of sugar syrup.


----------



## gmcharlie

Rhaldridge, you make that comment about kids fatter.. Possibly.. but how do you explain the life expectancy is higher now than ever> I suppose thats to SPITE the sugar?

Didn't say there was no good info, or that those men were less than great at what they did. What they did better than any is document things. That was where there greatness really lies.
Just saying times are a lot different... Lots of things out here now that non of the grandfathers experienced. who to say how they would have written if Mann lake could get them Keiths nutra bee patties....or if they had experienced huge losses to Varroa. Its just like the constitution.... great thoughts and words. But its the ideas we need to evaluate, and then somehow project them forward. Without the ability to progress your thinking, your just stuck in the past. Mono cultures and local issues such as almonds have changed the face of beekeeping.... That is reality. We have one member here who is touting the "old ways" of natural beekeeping like a religion. His honey totals for this year were around 200lbs for 25 hives....... I would bet hes in a mono culture area...... and for many of us that would have been a total waste of time and money to pursue. for others its just fine..... Hes obviously happy with it.... But I do believe if Doolittle had those numbers he would not have bothered with a book. So faced with that situation we do have to acknowledge things are not the same as they were.

We can blame sugar, we can blame varro, we can and do blame each other. (this OP is proof) but reality is we do as much and more with bees than ever before... and sugars are and have been a part of that. I would bet a weeks pay there are no commercial guys (you know the men who make a LIVING) who are not useing any feeds here in the US.... that should tell us something. Men and women who have done a lot more work and math than me are useing it, who would I be to say they are wrong?....and yet here we are again with a few people with a cpl hives throwing rocks at feeding.


----------



## Kelly Livingston

bluegrass said:


> Some food for thought:
> 
> When I started doing cutouts 10 or so years ago one thing I started to notice is that even in the worst of seasons when all hives are on welfare; feral hives are full of honey. Maybe they are good robbers, or maybe they are better foragers.


Or it might be that you only found the feral hives that didn't die or didn't swarm that season and just packed in the spring flow.... I've never done a cutout before so I'm just curious.... has anyone ever done a cutout of a dead hive? I've never heard of it on these forums anyway :-/


----------



## sqkcrk

gmcharlie said:


> Just saying times are a lot different... Lots of things out here now that non of the grandfathers experienced. who to say how they would have written if Mann lake could get them Keiths nutra bee patties....or if they had experienced huge losses to Varroa. Its just like the constitution.... great thoughts and words. But its the ideas we need to evaluate, and then somehow project them forward. Without the ability to progress your thinking, your just stuck in the past. Mono cultures and local issues such as almonds have changed the face of beekeeping.... That is reality. We have one member here who is touting the "old ways" of natural beekeeping like a religion. His honey totals for this year were around 200lbs for 25 hives....... I would bet hes in a mono culture area...... and for many of us that would have been a total waste of time and money to pursue. for others its just fine..... Hes obviously happy with it.... But I do believe if Doolittle had those numbers he would not have bothered with a book. So faced with that situation we do have to acknowledge things are not the same as they were.


We like to romanticisze the past, perhaps more than we anthropomorphize bees. The written word was the medium of the times gmcharlie. Just imagine all of the folks that didn't write books or magazine articles. What is left to us is the cream of the crop too. Writing helped pay the bills too. As it does today. One hundred years from now beekeepers will bve looking back at Seeley and Oliver and others as through a rose colored looking glass, commenting on the classics. Pining for the good old days.


----------



## gmcharlie

:ws: lloking around me (politicaly speaking) and thinking someone would ever consider this the "good ole days" wow thats a scary thought, but probably right on target.

Kellys comment is SPOT ON..... I have done 4 cutouts this last month, and can tel you without a hesitation those hives would not be there in the spring. 4 cutouts and a grand total of less than 30 lbs of stores, and no fall goldenrod flow........ Without feed this year winter losses in this are are going to be abnormally high.


----------



## rhaldridge

gmcharlie said:


> Rhaldridge, you make that comment about kids fatter.. Possibly.. but how do you explain the life expectancy is higher now than ever> I suppose thats to SPITE the sugar?
> .


There's no "Possibly" about it. Obesity is much higher than it was when I was a kid. Sadly, the life expectancy of some young people is now forecast to be less than the life expectancy of their parents at the same age. I read a story recently that said that the only demographic that was not declining in life expectancy was black men, and they still die a lot sooner than other demographic groups.

I think it's a shame we can't discuss these things without folks getting their knickers in a knot. Just because I would like to avoid sugar doesn't mean that I think folks who feed sugar are doing anything terrible. Most of them know a whole lot more about beekeeping than I do, so they are more likely to be right than I am, but... I guess I have a problem with authority.


----------



## sqkcrk

whose knickers are in a knot?

and who are you calling a knicker anyway?


----------



## Rusty Hills Farm

> There's no "Possibly" about it. Obesity is much higher than it was when I was a kid. Sadly, the life expectancy of some young people is now forecast to be less than the life expectancy of their parents at the same age.


But you are overlooking A LOT. Like fast foods. Like families not eating together. Like school systems doing away with PE and even recess. Like school kids who get their choice of what to have for lunch and generally choosing badly. Like hours spent in front of the tv or computer instead of outside playing. There are tremendous differences between how kids are raised today and how they were raised even 20 years ago. And much of it boils down to a lack of exercise coupled with snacking instead of eating real meals.

And none of it has ANYTHING to do with raising bees!!!

JMO

Rusty


----------



## rhaldridge

Rusty Hills Farm said:


> But you are overlooking A LOT. Like fast foods. Like families not eating together. Like school systems doing away with PE and even recess. Like school kids who get their choice of what to have for lunch and generally choosing badly. Like hours spent in front of the tv or computer instead of outside playing. There are tremendous differences between how kids are raised today and how they were raised even 20 years ago. And much of it boils down to a lack of exercise coupled with snacking instead of eating real meals.
> 
> And none of it has ANYTHING to do with raising bees!!!
> 
> Rusty


All true, though sugar is a huge component of junk food and industrially produced food... TV dinners, sodas, and snacks. I guess I was just trying to make the point that excessive consumption of sugar does lead to metabolic problems in people, which as you say, has nothing to do with bees, at least not directly. 

So cheap sugar is not a great thing for us (google Robert Lustig if you don't believe this.) Probably different for bees, but the argument goes: We did not evolve to eat the massive amounts of sugar we now eat, and it does contribute to these metabolic problems we're having. Bees did not evolve to eat cane sugar, and it is at least conceivable to me that excessive feeding of sugar might lead to metabolic problems for bees. 

Is that not at least somewhere within the realm of possibility?


----------



## Hazel-Rah

gmcharlie said:


> Rhaldridge, you make that comment about kids fatter.. Possibly.. but how do you explain the life expectancy is higher now than ever> I suppose thats to SPITE the sugar?


OK, since you went there... now I'm gonna have to butt in. If you can come up with a statistic that states that children have longer life expectancy than their parents... it's because of modern technological advances in medicine, you know, like triple bypass heart surgery!?!?! The leading cause of death in this country is heart disease, followed closely by stroke and then cancer. There are beyond numerous medical journal publications linking the consumption of processed, sugar-added foods with these conditions.

And I don't feed sugar to my bees. Period.


----------



## tommysnare

:thumbsup:


----------



## Tim Ives

Hazel-Rah said:


> OK, since you went there... now I'm gonna have to butt in. If you can come up with a statistic that states that children have longer life expectancy than their parents... it's because of modern technological advances in medicine, you know, like triple bypass heart surgery!?!?! The leading cause of death in this country is heart disease, followed closely by stroke and then cancer. There are beyond numerous medical journal publications linking the consumption of processed, sugar-added foods with these conditions.
> 
> And I don't feed sugar to my bees. Period.


 http://primaldocs.com/opinion/heart-disease-is-a-sugar-disease/


----------



## sqkcrk

rhaldridge said:


> Bees did not evolve to eat cane sugar, and it is at least conceivable to me that excessive feeding of sugar might lead to metabolic problems for bees.


You are a smart guy and handy w/ a computer. What are the basic differences between the sugars found in honey and cane sugar? Humans eat foods which their bodies turn into sugar and bees eat sugars, what are the sugars in our digestive systems and those in bees digestive systems?


----------



## sqkcrk

Hazel-Rah said:


> OK, since you went there... now I'm gonna have to butt in. If you can come up with a statistic that states that children have longer life expectancy than their parents... it's because of modern technological advances in medicine, you know, like triple bypass heart surgery!?!?! The leading cause of death in this country is heart disease, followed closely by stroke and then cancer. There are beyond numerous medical journal publications linking the consumption of processed, sugar-added foods with these conditions.
> 
> And I don't feed sugar to my bees. Period.


We all die from heart failure in the end. The failure of the heart to function. What was the leading cause of death 100 years ago? Old age? At 75? Isn't the reason that heart ailments and cancer are the leading cause of death in America because we have eliminated the other causes? People used to die from consumption. And consumption was done about that. We figured out what consumption was and did something about it.


----------



## sqkcrk

Tim Ives said:


> http://primaldocs.com/opinion/heart-disease-is-a-sugar-disease/


So, maybe CCD is heart disease in bees? I bet that isn't a common link not looked at my scientists.


----------



## WLC

Nectar and honey both contain many plant derived compounds as well as a living culture of microorganisms.

There are simply too many differences between honey derived from nectar and syrup derived stores to mention here.

Feeding syrup is usually justified as an economic and practical necessity.

No flow, you feed syrup. Rob and sell the honey, feed syrup, and you make a profit.

I have seen bees ignore syrup once the flow started, so I'm not sure that they become lazy given a choice between syrup or nectar.

However, I wouldn't say that syrup is healthier for bees than nectar or honey. It's not.


----------



## Daniel Y

rhaldridge said:


> All true, though sugar is a huge component of junk food and industrially produced food... TV dinners, sodas, and snacks. I guess I was just trying to make the point that excessive consumption of sugar does lead to metabolic problems in people, which as you say, has nothing to do with bees, at least not directly.
> 
> So cheap sugar is not a great thing for us (google Robert Lustig if you don't believe this.) Probably different for bees, but the argument goes: We did not evolve to eat the massive amounts of sugar we now eat, and it does contribute to these metabolic problems we're having. Bees did not evolve to eat cane sugar, and it is at least conceivable to me that excessive feeding of sugar might lead to metabolic problems for bees.
> 
> Is that not at least somewhere within the realm of possibility?


So how would people fare on a diet of only honey, nectar and pollen?


----------



## sqkcrk

Before they starved?


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

Daniel Y said:


> So how would people fare on a diet of only honey, nectar and pollen?


Ha! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:



Even more amusing is that there is actually a *Lemon and Honey Diet *promoted as a "weight loss" diet!
http://how-to-lose-weight7.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-lemon-and-honey-diet-for-weight-loss.html

All we need is an overweight celebrity to promote this diet, and watch honey sales soar ...
:lookout: :gh: :lpf:


----------



## sqkcrk

Commercial beekeepers wouldn't go for it. Until Mt. Dew starts using honey as their sweetener. Some beekeepers I know are on the Mt. Dew Diet.

When I read the opening paragraph of that link I wondered what foreign language it was translated from. "The modern American diet packaged and processed foods overweight contributes to an increase in the number of overweight people ..." Maybe they need a more observant Editor.


----------



## Acebird

sqkcrk said:


> We all die from heart failure in the end.


Where did you get that Mark? My mother died of Alzheimer's, my father died of COPD, my mother in law is dying of Parkinson's and my grandmother willingly died of starvation because she had cancer just to name a few examples in my family. People die everyday of car accidents and gun shot wounds which are part of the statistics for life expectancy.

The reason we die of heart ailments is because our diet and exercise habits are wrong. The reason we die of cancer is because our environment is growing in chemical waste and our food supply is increasing in chemical waste. Another factor could be EMF and other radiation which is greatly on the rise.

I don't think my age group has a higher life expectancy than my father's and I certainly don't think my children's age group have a higher life expectancy than my generation.

The only ground breaking medical discoveries that I can think of that span all three generation is stem cell reasearch. It will be a long time in the future before that will affect life expectancy.


----------



## Beregondo

Sucrose, glucose, and fructose.
Those are the sugars that naturally occur in the hive.

They don't harm bees.

If you dry out sucrose you get the same stuff that is granulated sugar - little bits of hard dry sucrose.

Sugar syrup isn't as good for bees as honey and nectar are.
There are things in honey and nectar that the bees need.

If bees only have sucrose syrup available to the for a long time, their health suffers, and after a long time, they die...unless nectar or honey becomes available first.

If they have honey or nectar available at the same time, they'll eat and store the syrup...in the process innoculating it with some of the same microbial cultures that are in nectar and honey.

If bees_* don't*_ have nectar or honey available they die WAAAAY faster if sugar syrup is unavailable too.

Feeding bees syrup when nectar and honey are not available is healthier for those bees than not doing so and letting them starve.
Dead bees are not healthy bees.

Wise people recognize when there is not going to be enough nectar and honey to last through winter, and feed sugar.

People who are wiser still (with regard to bee health) usually avoid the situation of not having any nectar or honey available.
Only occasionally do nectar-bearing plants fail to produce a sufficient crop for bee health.

Summary:

Nectar and honey are the healthiest carbohydrate food source for bees.
Sugar syrup doesn't have all the stuff honey or nectar do and isn't as healthy a food for bees.
Having no food kills bees.
Bees fed sugar are healthier than dead bees.

One has three choices:
1) Make sure they have plenty of nectar/honey
2) Feed them if they don't
3) Clean out dead hive(s)

Personally, I avoid feeding sugar where possible, leaving enough honey for winter when it can be done.


----------



## sqkcrk

Acebird said:


> Where did you get that Mark? My mother died of Alzheimer's, my father died of COPD, my mother in law is dying of Parkinson's and my grandmother willingly died of starvation because she had cancer just to name a few examples in my family. People die everyday of car accidents and gun shot wounds which are part of the statistics for life expectancy.
> 
> The reason we die of heart ailments is because our diet and exercise habits are wrong. The reason we die of cancer is because our environment is growing in chemical waste and our food supply is increasing in chemical waste. Another factor could be EMF and other radiation which is greatly on the rise.
> 
> I don't think my age group has a higher life expectancy than my father's and I certainly don't think my children's age group have a higher life expectancy than my generation.
> 
> The only ground breaking medical discoveries that I can think of that span all three generation is stem cell reasearch. It will be a long time in the future before that will affect life expectancy.


In the end their hearts stopped beating. If their heart kept beating they would not be dead. That's where I get it from. Those things lead to their heart stopping, eventually.


----------



## Beregondo

Deleted by poster
(unprofitable comment)


----------



## Acebird

sqkcrk said:


> In the end their hearts stopped beating. If their heart kept beating they would not be dead. That's where I get it from. Those things lead to their heart stopping, eventually.


You aren't considered dead until your brain dies. So everybody dies from brain disease, using your logic.


----------



## beemandan

Acebird said:


> So everybody dies from brain disease, using your logic.


Not brain disease....brain failure.
In the end...I suppose its a toss up. Some folks are brain dead before their hearts stop...others, the ol' ticker stops...then the brain.
Now....why are we having this conversation?


----------



## jim lyon

Lost in this discussion is just how much honey is produced and immediately consumed by a hive. I have always assumed it takes about a frame of honey (or a 10 pound feed) to provide the carbohydrate requirement to raise a single frame of brood. That may be a bit high but not by much. A simple example to prove this is to take two large hives and remove the queen from one during even a minor flow. It's amazing how much heavier the queenless unit will be a few weeks later. When I say I supplement about 40 lbs. of syrup with about 30+ average stored pounds of honey it still wouldn't begin to meet the nutritional requirements of a hive that is lightly brooding from September through January and continuously brooding from January through the beginning of the surplus flow in June. During that time period our hives will see flows from gum weed, aster, goldenrod (in South Dakota), almonds in California, redbuds, holly, rattan vine, crimson clover, vetch, Indian blanket, honeysuckle, and privet (in Texas, just to name a few) and dandelion and fruit bloom in the spring back in South Dakota. Some of these sources barely maintain them while others may offer a surplus for a while. I would estimate in April through mid June that 90% of the bees needs are met by these different flows and of course the rich variety of pollen sources far exceeds the relatively few honey plants that I have listed here. To characterize anyone's bees as being adulterated or junk just because a beekeeper chooses to supplement with syrup from time to time is really not seeing or fully comprehending the big picture.


----------



## Tim Ives

The reason I got into raising bees. I use to consume 10-12 bottles of MD a day, I quit drinking MD I started using honey. One quart every other day. Thought it would be cheaper to have bees vs buying honey. I know the effects of 4000 calories of junk sugars vs 2000 calories of honey. I'll stick to using honey, for me and the bees...


----------



## Tim Ives

jim lyon said:


> Lost in this discussion is just how much honey is produced and immediately consumed by a hive. I have always assumed it takes about a frame of honey (or a 10 pound feed) to provide the carbohydrate requirement to raise a single frame of brood. That may be a bit high but not by much. A simple example to prove this is to take two large hives and remove the queen from one during even a minor flow. It's amazing how much heavier the queenless unit will be a few weeks later. When I say I supplement about 40 lbs. of syrup with about 30+ average stored pounds of honey it still wouldn't begin to meet the nutritional requirements of a hive that is lightly brooding from September through January and continuously brooding from January through the beginning of the surplus flow in June. During that time period our hives will see flows from gum weed, aster, goldenrod (in South Dakota), almonds in California, redbuds, holly, rattan vine, crimson clover, vetch, Indian blanket, honeysuckle, and privet (in Texas, just to name a few) and dandelion and fruit bloom in the spring back in South Dakota. Some of these sources barely maintain them while others may offer a surplus for a while. I would estimate in April through mid June that 90% of the bees needs are met by these different flows and of course the rich variety of pollen sources far exceeds the relatively few honey plants that I have listed here. To characterize anyone's bees as being adulterated or junk just because a beekeeper chooses to supplement with syrup from time to time is really not seeing or fully comprehending the big picture.


Keeping weak hives, I can clearly see why you don't comprehend.


----------



## Hazel-Rah

sqkcrk said:


> We all die from heart failure in the end. The failure of the heart to function.


Heart failure is not the same as heart DISEASE.



Daniel Y said:


> So how would people fare on a diet of only honey, nectar and pollen?


Actually, I think there is a shamanic practice that promotes this diet (and I am NOT only sourcing that from _Shamanic Way of the Bee_). Only for a relatively short period of time, to produce semi-hallucinogenic states. I personally lived three days in the woods off pollen and water. This was a 'hot' tree-sit resupply, it involved hiking over 10 miles a day, with 50 pound packs and several hundred foot elevation changes.



sqkcrk said:


> Commercial beekeepers wouldn't go for it. Until Mt. Dew starts using honey as their sweetener. Some beekeepers I know are on the Mt. Dew Diet.


Clearly people who are OK with poisoning their own bodies in this way are not going to comprehend the gravity of feeding these products to their bees.



jim lyon said:


> During that time period our hives will see flows from gum weed, aster, goldenrod (in South Dakota), almonds in California, redbuds, holly, rattan vine, crimson clover, vetch, Indian blanket, honeysuckle, and privet (in Texas, just to name a few) and dandelion and fruit bloom in the spring back in South Dakota. Some of these sources barely maintain them while others may offer a surplus for a while. I would estimate in April through mid June that 90% of the bees needs are met by these different flows and of course the rich variety of pollen sources far exceeds the relatively few honey plants that I have listed here. To characterize anyone's bees as being adulterated or junk just because a beekeeper chooses to supplement with syrup from time to time is really not seeing or fully comprehending the big picture.


100% of my bees forage and surplus comes from their own stores, that's my big picture. It looks like this... willow, dandelion, fruit bloom, buckwheat, sweet clover, alfalfa, trefoil, fireweed, and many more I can't account for. There is no price that can be put on a productive, diverse and irrigated agricultural valley.


----------



## jim lyon

Hazel-Rah said:


> 100% of my bees forage and surplus comes from their own stores, that's my big picture. It looks like this... willow, dandelion, fruit bloom, buckwheat, sweet clover, alfalfa, trefoil, fireweed, and many more I can't account for. There is no price that can be put on a productive, diverse and irrigated agricultural valley.


I think thats great and just for the record if I were you I would probably be doing exactly what you are doing. As I have stated a couple times on this thread already, I think the majority of the time the best way to keep overwintered bees is to leave them with lots of stores. That dosent make what I am doing, in my situation, wrong however, nor does it prove that feeding leads to lazy bees. It would be silly for me to assume that I know what is best for your bees or for anyone who hasnt seen our operation first hand to assume that they know what I should be doing. The argument that my management practices result in weak, ill fed bees with no incentive to produce really flies in the face of what I see with my own eyes.


----------



## FlowerPlanter

Does feeding lead to lazy bees? 

I don’t think it makes them lazy, but it is evolving them. Every thing we put in the hive, and every change we make to the environment evolves the bees some way. Non stop feeding over hundreds of years may cause them to not be able to fly as far to forage. Or they may brood all year and require feeding just to stay alive...

Continuous treatments are also evolving our bees, may make them unable to fight off diseases by themselves.

The evolution goes both ways. Feral bees are breeding traits to survive in the wild, and the commercial breeder breed for numbers.


----------



## rhaldridge

sqkcrk said:


> You are a smart guy and handy w/ a computer. What are the basic differences between the sugars found in honey and cane sugar?


I wish it were otherwise (because I love sweet stuff) but there's not a lot of difference in the sugars.

My feeling is that there are certain things in honey (that are not in sugar) that make a difference to the bees-- pollen, enzymes, and so forth. The pH is different, too. I guess one reason that I think this is significant is that the bee diet is so restricted in terms of variety. They eat honey and pollen-- and not much else by choice (leaving out stuff like corn dust and honeydew.) So to me it makes sense that the suitability of these elements is more important to the bees than it would be to an animal with more variety in its diet. 

I honestly don't have any idea how significant feeding sugar is in the scheme of things-that-make-bees-weaker, or even if it has any deleterious effect at all. But I'm one of those folks who try to cover all the bases. I know that keeping bees without treatment is going to be tougher. So I'm trying to avoid every possible source of trouble that I can. I have the luxury of being able to avoid all but emergency feeding, so that's what I'm doing.


----------



## sqkcrk

Acebird said:


> You aren't considered dead until your brain dies. So everybody dies from brain disease, using your logic.


Seems like I heard something about sugar fueling our brains. Does it make our brains lazy?


----------



## sqkcrk

Tim Ives said:


> The reason I got into raising bees. I use to consume 10-12 bottles of MD a day, I quit drinking MD I started using honey. One quart every other day. Thought it would be cheaper to have bees vs buying honey. I know the effects of 4000 calories of junk sugars vs 2000 calories of honey. I'll stick to using honey, for me and the bees...


MD? Mogan David? Mad Dog 30-30? Oh, I bet you meant Mt. Dew. 

Dang Tim, what a Jones for sugar. Did you lose any weight? I don't drink sodas and don't eat candy bars anymore. I did lose some weight, but not as much as I thought I would.

Obviously eating a pint of honey each day doesn't make you lazy, but I wonder what it does do to you. Are you consciously avoiding sugar consumption all together?

How do you eat a pint of honey a day? By the spoonful? I'd get awfully tired of honey after a cpl days.


----------



## Tim Ives

sqkcrk said:


> MD? Mogan David? Mad Dog 30-30? Oh, I bet you meant Mt. Dew.
> 
> Dang Tim, what a Jones for sugar. Did you lose any weight? I don't drink sodas and don't eat candy bars anymore. I did lose some weight, but not as much as I thought I would.
> 
> Obviously eating a pint of honey each day doesn't make you lazy, but I wonder what it does do to you. Are you consciously avoiding sugar consumption all together?


I've always been athletic, low fat content and high metabolism. But my energy level went up after about a month of getting away from the soda pop.
Yes I consciously stay away from sweets, other than honey. My honey consumption is 1.5-2 quarts a week now.


----------



## sqkcrk

How do you consume that much honey? Baked goods? Drinks? By the tablespoonful?


----------



## Tim Ives

sqkcrk said:


> How do you consume that much honey? Baked goods? Drinks? By the tablespoonful?


Coffee.....


----------



## sqkcrk

so, do 4 cups of coffee per day make you lazy?


----------



## Tim Ives

sqkcrk said:


> so, do 4 cups of coffee per day make you lazy?


Probably would if I only had 4 cups and probably a headache from lack of caffeine.


----------



## Acebird

sqkcrk said:


> so, do 4 cups of coffee per day make you lazy?


LOL, your good Mark. Keep it up.


----------



## Tim Ives

sqkcrk said:


> so, do 4 cups of coffee per day make you lazy?


3500 calories from soda or sugar in coffee did....


----------



## bluegrass

sqkcrk said:


> What are the basic differences between the sugars found in honey and cane sugar?


White sugar is mostly pure sucrose, which is a disaccharide - that's two sugar molecules of glucose and fructose chemically joined together. 

Honey is also Glucose and Fructose, however they are not joined in honey, (not sucrose) they are monosacchride and the bees do not have to split them to put them to use like they do table sugar.

Now HFCS is a totally different from the other two in that it is first split from long starch polysaccharide into glucose, then a proportion is transformed into fructose using an isomerase enzyme.

Theoretically bees would have to use more metabolic energy to consume either table sugar or HFCS over Honey.


----------



## sqkcrk

Tim Ives said:


> Probably would if I only had 4 cups and probably a headache from lack of caffeine.


So u r a caffeine addict. Huh.


----------



## sqkcrk

bluegrass said:


> bees do not have to split them to put them to use like they do table sugar.


Therefore, since bees fed cane sugar have to work more to digest cane sugar, bees fed sugar aren't lazy. Tired maybe, but not lazy.


----------



## Hazel-Rah

bluegrass said:


> White sugar is mostly pure sucrose, which is a disaccharide - that's two sugar molecules of glucose and fructose chemically joined together.
> 
> Honey is also Glucose and Fructose, however they are not joined in honey, (not sucrose) they are monosacchride and the bees do not have to split them to put them to use like they do table sugar.
> 
> Now HFCS is a totally different from the other two in that it is first split from long starch polysaccharide into glucose, then a proportion is transformed into fructose using an isomerase enzyme.
> 
> Theoretically bees would have to use more metabolic energy to consume either table sugar or HFCS over Honey.





sqkcrk said:


> Therefore, since bees fed cane sugar have to work more to digest cane sugar, bees fed sugar aren't lazy. Tired maybe, but not lazy.


It seems that for the same reasons that a human system wears out from consuming indigestible food-stuffs, one could except honeybee metabolic systems to do something similar...?


----------



## sqkcrk

There are indigestibles in honey. I don't know that indigestibles in diets of humans or honeybees wears either of them out. Perhaps an overabundance of indigestibles in ones diets is harmful, but to state that indigestibles are harmful as a blanket statement seems a step too far.

What part of cane sugar is indigestible. Do indigestibles make bees lazy?


----------



## Oldtimer

Just curious Tim, it's personal so you don't have to answer but I'd be interested in the rest of your diet.


----------



## bluegrass

sqkcrk said:


> Therefore, since bees fed cane sugar have to work more to digest cane sugar, bees fed sugar aren't lazy. Tired maybe, but not lazy.


Metabolic processes are involuntary. The increased demand of digestion likely "wears" the bees out earlier. In the winter that equates to two things... More feed demand to fuel the metabolic processes to separate the sugar bonds and shortened life spans when they need to live as long as possible.


----------



## beemandan

bluegrass said:


> The increased demand of digestion likely "wears" the bees out earlier.


It's one thing to have an opinion....it's another to invent 'facts' to support it.


----------



## Hokie Bee Daddy

A well respected entomologist, bee researcher, and university professor told me that, to a honeybee, there is absolutely no difference between honey and table sugar syrup. This was good enough for me.


----------



## Tim Ives

Oldtimer said:


> Just curious Tim, it's personal so you don't have to answer but I'd be interested in the rest of your diet.


High protein diet plus lots of fruits/vegetable. NO fast foods.


----------



## Tim Ives

Hokie Bee Daddy said:


> A well respected entomologist, bee researcher, and university professor told me that, to a honeybee, there is absolutely no difference between honey and table sugar syrup. This was good enough for me.




Send him my way, I'll SHOW him the difference......


----------



## bluegrass

beemandan said:


> It's one thing to have an opinion....it's another to invent 'facts' to support it.


In GA where you really do not have a winter it probably does not matter. But here in New England we need the bees to have a lifespan of more than a few weeks to get the hive through the winter.

It is called a Hypothesis, not "inventing fact". You can't invent facts, you just prove them factual or false.

There is a lot of research in mammals that show that high metabolisms reduce life span. Whether that translates to insects is another matter.


----------



## bluegrass

Hokie Bee Daddy said:


> A well respected entomologist, bee researcher, and university professor told me that, to a honeybee, there is absolutely no difference between honey and table sugar syrup. This was good enough for me.


Who is it? I would like to read some of his/her research.


----------



## Hokie Bee Daddy

bluegrass said:


> Who is it? I would like to read some of his/her research.


If I had wanted to say then I would have in the first post. I don't dare turn this group loose on him. I'd like him to talk to me again sometime. Like I said, his word was good enough for me.


----------



## bluegrass

Hokie Bee Daddy said:


> If I had wanted to say then I would have in the first post. I don't dare turn this group loose on him. I'd like him to talk to me again sometime. Like I said, his word was good enough for me.


I have a talking honey bee that told me your entomologist is wrong.


----------



## jim lyon

So perhaps can you come up with an entomologist or some research somewhere supporting your original assertion that feeding syrup results in lazy bees?


----------



## sqkcrk

bluegrass said:


> Who is it? I would like to read some of his/her research.


Whether Hokie is referring to Jim Tew or not, that's what I learned when I was in school in Ohio, at OSU/ATI, studying under him from 1984 to 1986. Jim's knowledge and opinion may have changed since then. I don't know.

Roger Morse is dead, so he can't say the same. But my bet would be that he would. Anybody know any entomologists they would take the word of who they could call or e-mail and ask? Or State Apiculturalists like Paul Cappy of NY? Maybe Rick Fell of VA?

What would Jerry say?


----------



## rhaldridge

Hokie Bee Daddy said:


> A well respected entomologist, bee researcher, and university professor told me that, to a honeybee, there is absolutely no difference between honey and table sugar syrup. This was good enough for me.


There does not appear to be universal acceptance of this view. Here's what Jerry Hayes has to say in American Bee Journal:



> Q Sugar, corn syrup and Fondant?
> 
> Hello, just a quick question for you. I just mixed 25 lbs. of sugar with 8 lbs. of corn syrup and it makes a nice patty, so why do people go to the bother of getting fondant? Is fondant better for the bees?
> 
> Thank you,
> Bradlyn Wadel
> 
> A
> 
> Bradlyn, let me get on my “soap box” for a minute. There are lots of legitimate reasons to feed honey bees supplemental carbohydrates like sugar syrup, HFCS, fondant blends, sugar blends, etc. Some of these reasons include avoiding colony starvation, early spring stimulation, queen rearing, and making splits and nucs. However, there are also lots of reasons not to feed. Honey bees have evolved over millions of years to be able to gather, add enzymes, evaporate excess moisture and prepare for long-term storage a diverse and ever changing supply of the mixed sugar liquid (nectar) produced by flowering plants.
> They can eat and use other sugars, as supplied by the beekeeper, at some metabolic cost to be able to digest and convert it to a usable source of energy for them. It is kind of like you and I--we can digest and gain lots of energy and nutrition from sweet fruits and we can also get them from a Hershey bar? However, there is some cost to us in digestion and vitamin usage to convert it to a usable form before, during and after that first bite.


----------



## Oldtimer

I see no difference either. I rarely feed sugar but have no issues with it if needed. Zippo difference in the bees, and judging by what I see on youtube my hives have as many bees as Tims, at least.


----------



## Oldtimer

Something else that's been missed in this discussion also, is that many nectars, as in the flower, are sucrose. The bees break it into other sugars as one of the things they do to it to make it honey. Most of the other goodies that are in honey that have been mentioned in this thread, are in the pollen that is in the honey. Filter the pollen out, those goodies won't be there. 

My own experience feeding bees is if I give them cane syrup with some vinegar, and they have pollen, they are good as gold.


----------



## beemandan

The increased effort to digest sucrose...an involuntary process, much like heart rate during exercise.....likely improves the vigor of the bees' digestive system....likely increasing their lifespans....in both New England winters and those in GA.

You see bluegrass...when 'inventing facts' one person's facts are as good as another's.


----------



## bluegrass

jim lyon said:


> So perhaps can you come up with an entomologist or some research somewhere supporting your original assertion that feeding syrup results in lazy bees?


I don't believe I made an assertion. I believe it was a question as indicated by the question mark at the end of the title of the thread. However I also understand that all research on honey bees is funded for the benefit and at the expense of the industry. An industry that is heavily reliant on Sugar and HFCS so I would not expect there the be any negative results in research on the matter... And quite frankly; I have been unable to locate any pier reviewed research on the topic of sugar at all.

I also think that what I originally meant by the term "Lazy" is being misconstrued. I meant it in the purest form of the word... If the sugar is on the hive why should they fly two miles away when they can walk two boxes up and get all they need. But there is always the possibility that we are regressing the bees by providing all the carbohydrate they need right in the hive... Bees have been bred for production. It is hard to evaluate and continue to bred for production when we just keep them all as alive as possible with supplemental feeding.


----------



## Tim Ives

Oldtimer said:


> I see no difference either. I rarely feed sugar but have no issues with it if needed. Zippo difference in the bees, and judging by what I see on youtube my hives have as many bees as Tims, at least.


At what time of year??? Snow was on the ground 14 days previous to the first video. 2 more brood cycles, the population double to triples.

Shoot me a video of your bees 14 days after first pollen starts coming in.


----------



## bluegrass

beemandan said:


> The increased effort to digest sucrose...an involuntary process, much like heart rate during exercise.....


 My Father died on a stress test treadmill while in a cardiologists office. So.... Bad analogy.


----------



## sqkcrk

Sorry to hear that. What do you conclude from that?


----------



## jim lyon

bluegrass said:


> Now days people feed, feed, feed.... Then wonder why their hives do not produce surplus honey? It is because they don't have to collect nectar so why should they?


Without splitting hairs, this was your original statement, it sounds like an assertion to me and its the only reason I even decided to subscribe to this thread, not because I think sugar is necessarily any better than honey because with a few exceptions I think honey is a better feed. But this thread is titled "does feeding lead to lazy bees". Your assertion is yes, mine is no, I dont believe there is such evidence.


----------



## Oldtimer

Tim Ives said:


> At what time of year??? Snow was on the ground 14 days previous to the first video. 2 more brood cycles, the population double to triples.
> 
> Shoot me a video of your bees 14 days after first pollen starts coming in.


You'll have to wait to next year if you want that I'm afraid. Also, we don't have snow, your environment and mine are very different. My hives come through the winter strong and I actually encourage that because I breed and sell bees. It is spring time here and some of my hives have already been split 7 ways.

We don't have 14 days after first pollen here. Where I am pollen dribbles in all winter, and builds from there.

My comment was simply because the only evidence I see for your anti sugar stance, is your youtube videos. They leave me unconvinced that your hives have any more bees than mine. Which is somewhat academic anyway because most of my hives have never ever been fed sugar either, same as yours. But when I do feed sugar for whatever reason, provided it is done right I see no negative effect compared to non sugar fed hives.

I will say that unlike you, my queens do not last 5 years, average. They tend to get superseded after 2 seasons and a 3 year old queen is old in my hives. However that would not be sugar related either as most of my queens have never seen sugar.

About your diet, very interesting, I'll agree protein and vegetables would equate to a hunter gatherer diet. Fruit, well that used to be just seasonal. The huge quantity of carbs in the form of honey would be unusual during our evolutionary process as would the huge quantity of coffee. However, I've seen your pic, end of day it appears to be working for you, although you do have trouble focussing long enough to write a post of more than one sentence LOL. Did you say once you were overweight before you started to eat this way?


----------



## sqkcrk

Why would a beekeeper feed lead to lazy bees? Lead is a heavy metal known to be something bad to ingest.


----------



## Oldtimer

bluegrass said:


> I also think that what I originally meant by the term "Lazy" is being misconstrued. I meant it in the purest form of the word... If the sugar is on the hive why should they fly two miles away when they can walk two boxes up and get all they need.


OK, now I see your rationale.

There are actually two questions you are asking but I don't know which, or both, you ask. The first is does feeding sugar make bees lazy right now, cos they don't have to collect? And the second is does feeding sugar make bees lazy in years to come, by breeding lazy bees?

To the first, does it make them lazy now, the answer is yes, and no. When a hive is fed sugar syrup, initially there is a huge increase in activity in the hive, bees flying off all directions in huge numbers looking for whatever they think is out there. So it doesn't make them lazy it does the reverse.
However if sugar feed is continuously piled into a hive till they just cannot store any more, then they just kind of shut down, you open the hive and the bees are just really laid back, not doing much, there isn't anything they can do. Same as if they are on a heavy nectar flow and don't have room to store it.

To the long term question would it make then lazy in the future, that depends entirely on what we breed from, not whether they are fed sugar. So one claim made is commercial beekeepers requeen every year. Generally it's not true, but if it was, then feeding sugar would not make their future bees lazy. 
In my country most commercial beekeepers breed their own queens, they breed from the best ones, when choosing their breeders they consider how the hive has done and if it has been fed sugar that will be taken into account.


----------



## Hokie Bee Daddy

Mark guessed my professor contact in an earlier post so I'll confirm. It was Richard Fell from Virginia Tech. We're lucky that he makes a presentation for our beekeepers association every couple of years.


----------



## julysun

"What is left to us is the cream of the crop too." Sqkcrk

Or possibly the slum gum? After all, we only have what is left, right?


----------



## Gino45

Tim, I produce coffee that is so good that I consider it blasphemy to add sugar! Maybe you should try some. Also, more than 4 cups of this stuff will give you the 'shakes', so it seems to me that you must be drinking weak, lousy coffee.

I only eat honey on my oatmeal.

www.melomountainfarm.com


----------



## Gino45

I always thought that the purpose of feeding was to stimlulate brood rearing, and that those who do it are queen producers and package bees producers and specifically almond pollinators. Also, those who are desperately trying to increase their hive numbers. Why do they do it? Because they need as many bees as they can get early in the year.

So increasing brood production is not a sign of laziness in the bees. Feeding during a decent flow? Do people really do that?


----------



## Tim Ives

Gino45 said:


> Tim, I produce coffee that is so good that I consider it blasphemy to add sugar! Maybe you should try some. Also, more than 4 cups of this stuff will give you the 'shakes', so it seems to me that you must be drinking weak, lousy coffee.
> 
> I only eat honey on my oatmeal.
> 
> www.melomountainfarm.com



Cool... Thanks


----------



## Colleen O.

Gino45 said:


> Tim, I produce coffee that is so good that I consider it blasphemy to add sugar! Maybe you should try some. Also, more than 4 cups of this stuff will give you the 'shakes', so it seems to me that you must be drinking weak, lousy coffee.
> 
> I only eat honey on my oatmeal.
> 
> www.melomountainfarm.com


LOL!

On weekends I drink cafe' latte sweetened with a teaspoon of honey...during the week I drink it black (and totally agree good coffee to start with makes all the difference). About a decade ago when I was in school I used to drink sugar sweetened lattes but cut out the sugar when I noticed I was having to drink more coffee at closer intervals to counteract the sugar crash.

About feeding and lazy bees...maybe. I think it would depend on breeding decisions made by a great number of beekeepers over a long period of time. I think that most beekeepers who are feeding are trying to do so judiciously but those who are just starting, like me, might not know the correct indicators and err on the side of more rather than not enough. If you lose bees due to not feeding you will probably feed in the future. If you only skim some threads on here an inexperienced beekeeper (without a mentor's guidance) might get the idea that they need to feed each fall and that robbing all the bees stores and replacing them with sugar syrup is no big deal. Sometimes we 'hear' what we want to 'hear'.

I am feeding this year because, although it is my second year keeping bees, last year's bees didn't make it through the winter so this year I started again. Last year it was a bad summer with a drought and heatwave, etc... There wasn't enough forage and I didn't feed enough. I know that because in the last cold snap in late february the cluster froze to death because they starved. Realizing my mistake in late December I had put a brick of candy in but as it was a top bar hive only one bar of bees could access it. They had started brood and wouldn't leave it. The queen was in a ring of bees in the middle of the cluster. It was really sad and I was responsible. This year I am feeding but I don't think it is as good as nectar turned into honey and once I have the bees established I only plan to feed them in emergencies. I don't think they will have a chance to get lazy between now and then.


----------



## beemandan

bluegrass said:


> My Father died on a stress test treadmill while in a cardiologists office. So.... Bad analogy.


One in a million.
Countless millions maintain cardiovascular health, in part, by regular exercise that requires their hearts work 'extra'.
I think the analogy is good.
Sorry about your dad.


----------



## bluegrass

beemandan said:


> One in a million.
> Countless millions maintain cardiovascular health, in part, by regular exercise that requires their hearts work 'extra'.
> I think the analogy is good.
> Sorry about your dad.


Actually it is a lot more common than you would think. 

From a professional standpoint I can tell you that normal hear rate is from 60-90 BPM. It is okay/good to elevate it for brief periods of time, as high at 100-120. Any sustained heart rate above normal we call Tachycardia and it gets treated medically. The heart, like any other muscle, gets larger the harder it is worked. However the heart has chambers in it which must flex in order to pump blood. So if it becomes larger (megacardia) from that increased heart rate, the chambers become less effective at pumping blood. And as you can imagine... not a good thing. 

Also if you follow basket ball think about the occasional reports of kids dying on the courts from heart attacks. They regularly increase their heart rates with an ill-effect. 

Jim: Okay you got me.. I made an assertion. I am free to believe what I wish. If I ever come across some piece of research to support my claim, I will forward you a copy. At which point we will likely delve into another drawn out debate over it


----------



## sqkcrk

julysun said:


> "What is left to us is the cream of the crop too." Sqkcrk
> 
> Or possibly the slum gum? After all, we only have what is left, right?


I wrote that? Where? Regarding what?


----------



## beemandan

bluegrass said:


> Actually it is a lot more common than you would think.
> 
> From a professional standpoint


I also have a professional opinion....and I have a solid idea of how uncommon death during a cardiovascular stress test is. 
But to the topic of 'exercising' a bees's digestive system....I believe that all either of us can express is an unprofessional opinion. Which goes to my original point....anyone can invent 'facts' to support their opinion.....and in the end those invented facts meaningless.


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

sqkcrk said:


> I wrote that? Where? Regarding what?


See post #98 of this thread.


----------



## jim lyon

bluegrass said:


> Jim: Okay you got me.. I made an assertion. I am free to believe what I wish. If I ever come across some piece of research to support my claim, I will forward you a copy. At which point we will likely delve into another drawn out debate over it


No problem and yes you are free to share your beliefs. Its what makes the forum interesting. It's been a strange thread with some unusual detours. My guess is that the basis for your op was frustration with some of your package customers who constantly fed their hives and then complained to you about their lack of production. As Oldtimer correctly pointed out, yes bees will slow or even stop hoarding when space becomes critical, but then that's another issue entirely. 
I have stayed silent on the human health and nutrition parallel not because I don't have strong feelings on the subject (I'm 60, walk/jog 2 to 3 miles per day and havent drank sugared pop in about 4 years) but because I was trying to save wear and tear on Barry's big eraser. . Sorry about your dad, I can relate.


----------



## Daniel Y

bluegrass said:


> I have a talking honey bee that told me your entomologist is wrong.


I know of three. I would not put any of their names on this group either. they have a profession to look after. I know one has directly told me they will not get involved in Honeybee research for one reason. and that is the controversy that surrounds anything said about Honeybees. TI is like putting a noose around her neck.

What I have been told is that even though there are differences in Honey and Sugar syrup. The bees convert the sugar just like they do nectar. And although the exact makeup of the two honeys is different. it is of no consequence to the bees. I then asked about the difficulty for the bees to convert sugar in comparison to nectar they said that also may be true depending on the nectar. But that again it is not something the Bees are not capable of doing by any means. so more difficult does not mean impossible or even stressful. I actually asked specifically about stress for the bees being fed sugar syrup. One of them compared it to metabolizing water in comparison to milk. That there is a difference and that one may be more difficult than the other. but neither would induce stress. There is much on these forums that are presented in such a way. A difference is claimed but it is never established that the difference is of an consequence.

There have been multiple lengthy discussion about balanced nutrition. All of it is unnecessary as most of the elements of concern in those discussion are even necessary for a Honeybee. And those that are are met even by unbalanced food sources. Unbalanced does not men s food is completely lacking in a trace element. it just means not every bit of that element can be utilized. this does not matter as long as the amount of the element that can be utilized is adequate.

It is like someone suddenly making a big deal about rain and that crops are not capable of capturing and utilizing every drop of rain. to much of it goes to waste. It is captured in the soil and carried way or evaporates back into the air and the plant never gets to use it when needed. but the truth is the plant gets all the moisture it needs. so what does it matter?

So could you explain a difference between Honey and sugar syrup? certainly. Could you support that there is a difference to the Honeybee? Probably. would that difference matter? not at all.


----------



## Acebird

Oldtimer said:


> My own experience feeding bees is if I give them cane syrup with some vinegar, and they have pollen, they are good as gold.


How long is the winter in New Zealand?


----------



## sqkcrk

julysun said:


> "What is left to us is the cream of the crop too." Sqkcrk
> 
> Or possibly the slum gum? After all, we only have what is left, right?


Well that's a rather negative take on what I was getting at. Don't ya think? Cream rises to the top after all.

It has been my experience that the finest of artifacts of the past are found in antique shops and the worst/broken parts are found in the privy pits.

Maybe you were being funny?


----------



## Acebird

Daniel Y said:


> it just means not every bit of that element can be utilized. this does not matter as long as the amount of the element that can be utilized is adequate.


If the part of the element that cannot be utilized ends up in waste and in the middle of winter the bee can't take a dump it matters. I believe honey is the reason that the honeybee is the only insect that came from a warm climate and has acclimated to a very cold climate. It is my understanding that most hives don't starve in the winter they starve in the spring or very late winter. They die in the winter when their immune system has been compromised.


----------



## Tim Ives

Acebird said:


> If the part of the element that cannot be utilized ends up in waste and in the middle of winter the bee can't take a dump it matters. I believe honey is the reason that the honeybee is the only insect that came from a warm climate and has acclimated to a very cold climate. It is my understanding that most hives don't starve in the winter they starve in the spring or very late winter. They die in the winter when their immune system has been compromised.


 PROJECT CONTACTS Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman ([email protected] Gordon Wardell ([email protected] ) ) Effects of Protein Supplements on Worker Physiology and Immune Response Examined. To evaluate the potential benefits of nutritional supplements on bee health, ARS scientists compared protein levels, endocrine development, and immune response in adult worker bees that were fed protein, pollen, and high-fructose corn syrup supplements. Results showed that protein and pollen supplements produced similarly positive effects, but bees fed high-fructose corn syrup had significantly reduced immune responses. This study will help beekeepers improve management strategies for their bees. FUNDING ARS

2010 USDA CCD Progress Report pg A-30

How 'lazy' is one going to be with significantly lower immune response?


----------



## sqkcrk

Nothing


----------



## Hazel-Rah

Daniel Y said:


> It is like someone suddenly making a big deal about rain and that crops are not capable of capturing and utilizing every drop of rain. to much of it goes to waste. It is captured in the soil and carried way or evaporates back into the air and the plant never gets to use it when needed. but the truth is the plant gets all the moisture it needs. so what does it matter?


So I have to admit that I'm not sure how this analogy applies to inadequate bee nutrition, but it's completely off-base on it's own merits. Water loss in crops is a HUGE concern, for EVERY farmer, on EVERY crop. Otherwise we wouldn't be spending millions of subsidized gov't dollars on massive irrigation projects and dams. Draining aquifers to boot!

Crops do not magically get all the moisture they need from rain. Modernized 'no-till' cultivating methods limit surface evaporation by disrupting soil capillaries and less 'modern' farmers implement mulching crops and inter-row cropping. So yes, farmers DO make a BIG deal out of crops not getting the moisture they need.

Honestly it boggles my mind just a little to hear people in this forum admit to the feeding of foodstuffs that are... OK, let's not call it 'indigestible', how about 'less readily available' or 'requiring more metabolic processing', and think that it doesn't have any consequences. Just because somebody's entomologist/professor friend, who actually isn't involved in bee research, doesn't think there is a link, doesn't mean jack to me. IMO the scientific research community in oppressively entrenched in their own indoctrination.


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

While Ace didn't explain his point the way I would have, he is correct about undesirable elements (solids) in bee food during winter. 

> it just means not every bit of that element can be utilized. this does not matter as long as the amount of the element that can be utilized is adequate.




Acebird said:


> If the part of the element that cannot be utilized ends up in waste and in the middle of winter the bee can't take a dump it matters.


 As an example, [brown] organic sugar has a higher ash content than granulated sugar. The bees eat the sucrose in that sugar, but that ash cannot be digested by the bees. The ash would normally be eliminated via poop. But when bees cannot fly out of the hive during winter, they cannot/do not poop in the hive. Bee dysentery can be the result. If a purer sugar without the extra element [ash] had been used instead, dysentery would not be an issue. 

Note that this issue is not restricted to bees eating sugar vs honey in winter. Some honeys can also contribute to this problem.

You can find via Google any number of sites that support this, here is one of those sites:


> *Dysentery. *Although it is not a disease, dysentery is considered here because so many beekeepers think of it as a disease symptom, especially of nosema disease. Bees with dysentery are unable to hold their waste products in their bodies and they release them in the hive or close to it. The condition is recognized by the dark spots and streaks on combs, on the exterior of the hive, and on the snow near the hive in late winter (Fig. 72). Dysentery is caused by an excessive amount of water in a bee's body. The *consumption during the winter of coarsely granulated honey *or honey with a high water content is one cause of the disease.
> 
> http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/vista/html_pubs/BEEKEEP/CHAPT7/chapt7.html


.


----------



## rhaldridge

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Note that this issue is not restricted to bees eating sugar vs honey in winter. Some honeys can have higher solids, and also contribute to this problem.


Do you have a citation for the higher ash content in honey? Isn't most of the "solids" in honey... pollen?


----------



## Tim Ives

rhaldridge said:


> Do you have a citation for the higher ash content in honey? Isn't most of the "solids" in honey... pollen?


Found one Ray.

http://www.honey-health.com/chemistry-of-honey/


----------



## sqkcrk

So, there is cane sugar in honey. Interesting.


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

> Do you have a citation for the higher ash content in honey? 

Technically, I didn't say some honeys have a higher ash content, I said some _sugars _-particularly brown/organic _sugars_- have a higher ash content. This site provides a handy summary of that situation:

http://www.honeybeesuite.com/is-organic-sugar-better-for-bees/

You can verify the numbers for ash content of organic sugar here:
http://www.hacanada.com/login/cp/bpci/2009722022426959.pdf
And granulated sugar here:
http://www.unitedsugars.com/productsgransugarfinegran.html

My reference for some granulated _honeys _having leading to potential dysentery was in the original post #185 above. 

I do acknowledge that my original post suggested that granulated honeys had _additional solids_. I do not know if that is the case or not, and have modified my original post as such.


----------



## rhaldridge

It's interesting to read that honey with a high water content can lead to dysentery. I wonder what the water content of syrup stored in the combs is, compared to honey.

Makes me wonder if the mountain camp or fondant feeding is a good idea, if granulation can cause problems.

I wish your reference had included some explanation of why the authors thought granulation or higher water content might cause dysentery.


----------



## Oldtimer

Tim Ives said:


> PROJECT CONTACTS Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman ([email protected] Gordon Wardell ([email protected] ) ) Effects of Protein Supplements on Worker Physiology and Immune Response Examined. To evaluate the potential benefits of nutritional supplements on bee health, ARS scientists compared protein levels, endocrine development, and immune response in adult worker bees that were fed protein, pollen, and high-fructose corn syrup supplements. Results showed that protein and pollen supplements produced similarly positive effects, but bees fed high-fructose corn syrup had significantly reduced immune responses. This study will help beekeepers improve management strategies for their bees. FUNDING ARS
> 
> 2010 USDA CCD Progress Report pg A-30


Sounds like an interesting study Tim and I would like to read it.

Something to think on based just on your quote, the quote says feeding HFCS made the bees have reduced immune responses, but feeding bees protein supplements produced a positive effect. 

However as I can't see the whole article I wonder if the bees fed HFCS were fed only HFCS. Any commercial beekeeper who is doing things right will ensure when feeding that the bees not only get HFCS, but also have pollen or if there is none in the environment, or a pollen substitute, which IMHO would resolve the issue. A balanced diet is only common sense.

Acebird, a NZ winter is 6 months depending how you define winter. 

Also, I'm not experienced with harsh winters but it would seem to make sense that if feeding bees pollen sub pre winter, you'd want to have the bees finish it prior to when they cannot fly so they won't be taking unnecessary poops in the hive overwinter. I use some hives in my back yard as cell raisers, and for the first time in my life recently, as an experiment, fed them pollen sub a few weeks back. Soon had the neighbors at my door complaining about bee poop on their cars, checked it out & yes the cars were pasted. Told them I'll move the bees but actually I didn't, the bees finished the sub and the problem went away. 

Sure wouldn't want that going on inside a hive during a winter too harsh for the bees to get out.


----------



## julysun

Post #98 , This thread. Concerning "We like to romanticisze the past, perhaps more than we anthropomorphize bees." sqkcrk. 

Insulted? I apologize.

Have I learned anything about feeding bees from this thread? Nope, not a **** thing. With the exception that I should read more R. Oliver and less BeeSource.inch:


----------



## bluegrass

sqkcrk said:


> So, there is cane sugar in honey. Interesting.


You feed it to them don't you? If you are feeding cane sugar in the spring and they have it stored in the broodnest... Then you stop feeding and super up, but they decide to expand the broodnest and move the cane sugar honey up... When you spin out that super where do you think the cane sugar goes? 

There was a member on here a few years ago who was a bottler in Ma. I can't remember who it was, but they regularly posted lab results for cane sugar content of honey. If I remember correctly he was routinely getting results back where the honey was adulterated with as much as 30% Cane sugar. His explanation was that the bees were moving it out of the brood boxes and into the honey supers.


----------



## sqkcrk

No, not what I meant. Go check out the link Tim provided. It shows that 2.63% of honey is "sucrose (table sugar)".


----------



## sqkcrk

julysun said:


> Post #98 , This thread. Concerning "We like to romanticisze the past, perhaps more than we anthropomorphize bees." sqkcrk.
> 
> Insulted? I apologize.
> 
> Have I learned anything about feeding bees from this thread? Nope, not a **** thing. With the exception that I should read more R. Oliver and less BeeSource.inch:


Please don't read into my Posts things I don't write. I didn't say that I was insulted. You'd have to write something insulting directly to me before I'd be insulted.


----------



## WLC

I have had a student pour in about 10 pounds of table sugar right from the top into a hive for overwintering.

It exploded next spring.

What can I say? It works.


----------



## sqkcrk

julysun said:


> Post #98 , This thread. Concerning "We like to romanticisze the past, perhaps more than we anthropomorphize bees." sqkcrk.
> 
> Insulted? I apologize.
> 
> Have I learned anything about feeding bees from this thread? Nope, not a **** thing. With the exception that I should read more R. Oliver and less BeeSource.inch:


Interesting comments for a motivational instructor. Why don't you motivationally instruct us, rather than complain?


----------



## bluegrass

jim lyon said:


> My guess is that the basis for your op was frustration with some of your package customers who constantly fed their hives and then complained to you about their lack of production.


It is a good guess, but no. Two things; first new beeks oddly almost always take the blame for package failures. Second the bulk of my sales go to retailers.... Actually 100% of my sales in CT are to retailers, a good portion of them in MA are, and about 50% in VT are. So the customer doesn't know to call me if they have a complaint. In a few more years I hope to only be selling to retail outfits and with the increasing boom in smaller equipment retailers there is a lot of demand for experienced package haulers.


----------



## Acebird

Oldtimer said:


> Acebird, a NZ winter is 6 months depending how you define winter.


 one to two ft of snow with temperatures not exceeding 40 F,


----------



## bbrowncods

beemandan said:


> The increased effort to digest sucrose...an involuntary process, much like heart rate during exercise.....likely improves the vigor of the bees' digestive system....likely increasing their lifespans....in both New England winters and those in GA.
> 
> You see bluegrass...when 'inventing facts' one person's facts are as good as another's.


My invented fact is since they are getting fed from a feeder in the hive they have reduced exposure to pesticides, and do not have the wear and tear on their bodies by flying the hundreds of miles during their life. Therefore they live much longer!


----------



## bluegrass

Acebird said:


> one to two ft of snow with temperatures not exceeding 40 F,


He means 4 deg Centigrade and 0.6 meter of snow.


----------



## Tim Ives

bbrowncods said:


> My invented fact is since they are getting fed from a feeder in the hive they have reduced exposure to pesticides, and do not have the wear and tear on their bodies by flying the hundreds of miles during their life. Therefore they live much longer!


I wouldn't call 30+% losses each year living longer.


----------



## bluegrass

Oldtimer said:


> S
> 
> My own experience feeding bees is if I give them cane syrup *with some vinegar,* and they have pollen, they are good as gold.


I missed this the first time: By adding the Vinegar you are adding acid to the sugar which breaks the bonds and seperates the glucose and fructose. The result would be a product that closely resembles honey in a chemical nature.

Is that the reason you add the vinegar? I hav ethought about doing something similar, but was unsure if the acid would have a neg effect on the bees. I believe there is a product sold in Europe specifically developed as bee feed called "Ap-invert" It is a syrup that the bonds in the sucrose have been pre-broken.


----------



## rhaldridge

I think there may have been a misunderstanding of what the phrase in Tim's article means. The phrase was "sucrose (cane sugar)" if I remember correctly. I understood it to mean that a component of honey was sucrose and that the author was simply trying to explain what sucrose is. All cane sugar is sucrose, but not all sucrose is cane sugar, if that makes any sense.

Of course, as someone pointed out, a lot of honey is contaminated with sugars from non-nectar sources, but my understanding is that the bees convert syrup in the same way they convert nectar.


----------



## sqkcrk

So there is something equivalent to cane sugar in honey, normally. A pretty small percentage.


----------



## rhaldridge

sqkcrk said:


> So there is something equivalent to cane sugar in honey, normally. A pretty small percentage.


That's the way I read it.


----------



## cg3

That's what I understood, too


----------



## bluegrass

jim lyon said:


> So perhaps can you come up with an entomologist or some research somewhere supporting your original assertion that feeding syrup results in lazy bees?


How about one that talks about honey substitutes reducing the bees immunity and leaves them more vulnerable to viruses and pesticides? University of Illinois 2013
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/22/8842.abstract?sid=4b4329dc-e51d-44a0-9a02-95aaf565c371


----------



## Michael Palmer

sqkcrk said:


> So there is something equivalent to cane sugar in honey, normally. A pretty small percentage.


When one beekeeper I know claimed another beekeeper I know had 5% sucrose in his honey, and that honey should be considered adulterated, I looked at the hive and the honeybee for just what is in honey. Honey has 2.5-7% sucrose.


----------



## sqkcrk

bluegrass said:


> How about one that talks about honey substitutes reducing the bees immunity and leaves them more vulnerable to viruses and pesticides? University of Illinois 2013
> http://www.pnas.org/content/110/22/8842.abstract?sid=4b4329dc-e51d-44a0-9a02-95aaf565c371


You keep changing the subject. Maybe you regret using the word "lazy"? Is it your hypothesis that the over feeding of sugar leads to lower honey production? Due to a number of factors?


----------



## sqkcrk

Michael Palmer said:


> When one beekeeper I know claimed another beekeeper I know had 5% sucrose in his honey, ...


How do people know these things? Did he pay to have the honey analysed?


----------



## Tim Ives

sqkcrk said:


> You keep changing the subject. Maybe you regret using the word "lazy"? Is it your hypothesis that the over feeding of sugar leads to lower honey production? Due to a number of factors?


Yep....with the end result being, bees unwilling to work or use energy.


----------



## sqkcrk

Parts of where I live used to be one of the most productive parts of NY when it came to white honey. Thirty or 40 years ago there were years w/ huge crops. Supposedly over 200lbs per colony were not uncommon, some years. And the yds were not small.

A number of things have changed. Agriculture in general has changed in the last 50 years. Even in the last 25 years. The time I have lived in St. Lawrence County, NY, The North Country. 

Back in 1986, when we first moved to NY, there were no Mega Dairy Farms milking 500 cows and never grazing them on pastures. There was no need for CAFO Studies and manure lagoons. 

There was nowhere near the amount of corn grown on farms as there is now. It would not surprise me to find that the acres of corn grown in St. Lawrence Co is twice what it was 30 years ago. Land once used to graze cattle on is now corn. Land too wet to work is now tiled and drained so it can be worked.

So, what we do w/ our bees has changed too. Some folks have found success working their bees like they used to be worked before tracheal and varroa arrived. Good for them. Bravo. But most haven't. Most don't.

We all find our own way to do the best we can w/ what we have and what we know and how hard we are willing to work. It is hard for me to get my head around the idea that bees in general have been fundimentally changed by the practice of feeding them sugar w/ the intent of building up stores for the Winter or stimulating brood production in preperation for almond pollination.


----------



## Acebird

sqkcrk said:


> It is hard for me to get my head around the idea that bees in general have been fundimentally changed by the practice of feeding them sugar w/ the intent of building up stores for the Winter or stimulating brood production in preperation for almond pollination.


Fundamentally changed, I don't think so. But if you look back 25-50 years and compare the health of those people in your area vs. today you might be able to make the correlation on how food source and exercise affects health.

If you do it because it is your living and your business would go belly up if you didn't, I understand totally. But if you can't see that it makes any difference then you are just trying to make yourself feel good about feeding your bees.


----------



## jim lyon

bluegrass said:


> How about one that talks about honey substitutes reducing the bees immunity and leaves them more vulnerable to viruses and pesticides? University of Illinois 2013
> http://www.pnas.org/content/110/22/8842.abstract?sid=4b4329dc-e51d-44a0-9a02-95aaf565c371


I really don't know how many different ways I can say this but here goes one more time. 

I think honey is GENERALLY a better feed than any type of supplemental feed. Unlike sucrose all honey isn't created equally however. Some high moisture or hard granulating honeys can be hard on bees particularly in cold climates. Any supplemental feeding that is done should be done early enough in the fall so that the bees are able to properly dry it down and orient it to the cluster, however if done properly the bees do just fine on either sucrose or fructose as a supplement......that's my story and I'm stickin to it. 

Now are we going to discuss whether supplemental feeding results in lazy bees?


----------



## sqkcrk

jim lyon said:


> Now are we going to discuss whether supplemental feeding results in lazy bees?


Now where would the fun in that be?


----------



## Acebird

jim lyon said:


> Now are we going to discuss whether supplemental feeding results in lazy bees?


How much is supplemental? When it is used as a stimulant for raising brood is that all they have? When it is used to pack the brood nest was all the honey removed.
My gut tells me if there were honey in the hive the bees would use that first. So the feeding would be an insurance policy. The thing is if they never need the insurance where does it go? If you are depriving them of honey and their only choice is syrup then it is not supplemental it is substitution. I believe substitution is where you will see ill effects.


----------



## Oldtimer

> How about one that talks about honey substitutes reducing the bees immunity and leaves them more vulnerable to viruses and pesticides? University of Illinois 2013
> http://www.pnas.org/content/110/22/8842.abstract?sid=4b4329dc-e51d-44a0-9a02-95aaf565c371


"We determined that constituents found in honey, including p-coumaric acid, pinocembrin, and pinobanksin 5-methyl ether, specifically induce detoxification genes. These inducers are primarily found not in nectar but in pollen in the case of p-coumaric acid....."


----------



## Barry

Tim Ives said:


> Yep....with the end result being, bees unwilling to work or use energy.


 Riiiiight. You need different bees if yours are unwilling to work. Helped my neighbor get established with bees this year. Kept the sugar feed to the bees all spring and summer. They worked hard and built out 3 brood chambers worth of comb.


----------



## jim lyon

Acebird said:


> How much is supplemental? When it is used as a stimulant for raising brood is that all they have? When it is used to pack the brood nest was all the honey removed.


I stated my case way back in post #121 that all feeding (unless perhaps you are sitting inthemiddle of a desert) is supplemental to varying degrees. Our honey has always passed a pretty stringent SIRA test as being free of adulterants by one of the largest and most ethical honey packers in the US. Most years we do little, if any, feeding in the 6 to 8 weeks prior to any major surplus flow.


----------



## Oldtimer

Good way to solve potential neighbour issues Barry, get them keeping bees too!


----------



## Acebird

jim lyon said:


> Our honey has always passed a pretty stringent SIRA test as being free of adulterants by one of the largest and most ethical honey packers in the US. Most years we do little, if any, feeding in the 6 to 8 weeks prior to any major surplus flow.


Jim, I am sure what you say is true but that is not what my questions were pointing to. Your honey can be perfect but what are the bees wintering on and raising brood on? If it is all syrup it might make the bees develop a lazy gene. I am saying this in general not pointed at you.


----------



## jim lyon

Acebird said:


> Jim, I am sure what you say is true but that is not what my questions were pointing to. Your honey can be perfect but what are the bees wintering on and raising brood on? If it is all syrup it might make the bees develop a lazy gene. I am saying this in general not pointed at you.


Such a "lazy trait" would have to be bred into them by someone dedicated to finding such behavior I would think. In the scenario you describe all the bees from a winter cluster would be long gone by the time of your summer honey flow. One of the primary criteria we use for selecting breeders is high honey production (yeah I know I may also be selecting for agressive robbers in the process).
I may have had a few lazy ancestors myself but I doubt that it would have any bearing on how I live my life.


----------



## sqkcrk

Barry said:


> Riiiiight. You need different bees if yours are unwilling to work. Helped my neighbor get established with bees this year. Kept the sugar feed to the bees all spring and summer. They worked hard and built out 3 brood chambers worth of comb.


Can't you just imagine how much better they would have been had you not fed them? :lookout:


----------



## Tim Ives

Barry said:


> Riiiiight. You need different bees if yours are unwilling to work. Helped my neighbor get established with bees this year. Kept the sugar feed to the bees all spring and summer. They worked hard and built out 3 brood chambers worth of comb.



I played that game for 6 years pumping 40-60# of sugar per hive, didn't like the 50-90% losses. Then I learned how to KEEP bees.


----------



## Barry

Sorry you lost so many. Next year come on by and I'll do a split so you can get some bees that don't die on you. :lookout:

They're sucrose tolerant!


----------



## Tim Ives

Barry said:


> Sorry you lost so many. Next year come on by and I'll do a split so you can get some bees that don't die on you. :lookout:
> 
> They're sucrose tolerant!



Don't need them... Learned how to keep bees without treating or feeding. You can keep your junk food fed bees.


----------



## Hazel-Rah

sqkcrk said:


> Parts of where I live used to be one of the most productive parts of NY when it came to white honey. Thirty or 40 years ago there were years w/ huge crops. Supposedly over 200lbs per colony were not uncommon, some years. And the yds were not small.
> 
> A number of things have changed. Agriculture in general has changed in the last 50 years. Even in the last 25 years. The time I have lived in St. Lawrence County, NY, The North Country.
> 
> Back in 1986, when we first moved to NY, there were no Mega Dairy Farms milking 500 cows and never grazing them on pastures. There was no need for CAFO Studies and manure lagoons.
> 
> There was nowhere near the amount of corn grown on farms as there is now. It would not surprise me to find that the acres of corn grown in St. Lawrence Co is twice what it was 30 years ago. Land once used to graze cattle on is now corn. Land too wet to work is now tiled and drained so it can be worked.
> 
> So, what we do w/ our bees has changed too. Some folks have found success working their bees like they used to be worked before tracheal and varroa arrived. Good for them. Bravo. But most haven't. Most don't.
> 
> We all find our own way to do the best we can w/ what we have and what we know and how hard we are willing to work. It is hard for me to get my head around the idea that bees in general have been fundimentally changed by the practice of feeding them sugar w/ the intent of building up stores for the Winter or stimulating brood production in preperation for almond pollination.


So basically, since all the other farmers sold out - the beekeepers have to keep up? I know your talking about operating within the reality of your agricultural landscape. You don't have the flora diversity and vitality that you did 25 years ago, so you feel that you must compensate to have your bees where you need them at key times of the year.

But it sounds eerily like a justification for feeding inferior forage because of imposed agricultural priorities.


----------



## sqkcrk

Dairy farms have gotten bigger. More cows, more land, no pasture. The pasture was where the honey came from. The clover that cows grazed on and fertilized w/ their manure and put nutrients back into the soil so the clover would thrive. Now we have a lot less pasture, therefore less clover. Farmers grow alfalfa to make haylage and corn to make silage. So, what our bees have left to forage on are trees like basswood, the main floral source of this years crop, and so called invasive plants like purple loostrife and Japanese knotweed (aka bamboo) and the fields of goldenrod when it yields and asters if the season is long enough.

What is the inferior forage you refer to? If you mean sugar syrup, I have never fed sugar syrup. Too expensive for one thing. I have fed HFCS. Had I not last Spring I probably would be looking for work in some other field. Those who depend on their bees for hearth and home know what it is like to make decisions that keep the ball rolling. Maybe some day you will too.

I don't need to justify anything to anyone other than myself and those dependent on me. Maybe I misunderstand your point.


----------



## jim lyon

Hazel-Rah said:


> Honestly it boggles my mind just a little to hear people in this forum admit to the feeding of foodstuffs that are... OK, let's not call it 'indigestible', how about 'less readily available' or 'requiring more metabolic processing', and think that it doesn't have any consequences. Just because somebody's entomologist/professor friend, who actually isn't involved in bee research, doesn't think there is a link, doesn't mean jack to me. IMO the scientific research community in oppressively entrenched in their own indoctrination.


Just to set the record straight since no one else has spoken up. Richard Fell is and has been very much involved in bee research.
http://www.ento.vt.edu/people/emeriti/fell-richard/index.html


----------



## Oldtimer

Yes I picked up on that also Jim.

Have to be SO careful on the net, sifting truth from untruth. Some people will make up and say just anything true or false, like it's a fact, if it suits their story.


----------



## bluegrass

jim lyon said:


> Just to set the record straight since no one else has spoken up. Richard Fell is and has been very much involved in bee research.
> http://www.ento.vt.edu/people/emeriti/fell-richard/index.html


Looking at his CV and publication list there is not one piece of research on honey bee nutrition. As far as bee research goes it looks like he specializes in Nosema and Pesticides. I also do not see a PhD after his name when other Faculty bios have them? I would be even less likely to take his word as truth if he is/was a Master level professor and did not hold a doctorate.


----------



## sqkcrk

When I met him back in 1984 he was introduced to me as Dr. Rick Fell. 

I remember overhearing a conversation w/ Eva Crane in which she said something like "You Americans are so impressed w/ someone w/ Doctor in front of their name. We don't flaunt it as much in England as you do here."

If you will notice when looking at Publications and Research, none of the names sited have PhD behind them. Are we to assume none of them have Doctorate Degrees?

Can one be a Professor of Entomology w/out a Doctorate Degree? At the level which he worked?


----------



## Oldtimer

bluegrass said:


> Looking at his CV and publication list there is not one piece of research on honey bee nutrition. As far as bee research goes it looks like he specializes in Nosema and Pesticides. I also do not see a PhD after his name when other Faculty bios have them? I would be even less likely to take his word as truth if he is/was a Master level professor and did not hold a doctorate.


Well that rules out pretty much everybody on this thread then including you Bluegrass.


----------



## Michael Palmer

sqkcrk said:


> When I met him back in 1984 he was introduced to me as Dr. Rick Fell.


I know Rick...yes, he's Dr Rick Fell.


----------



## jim lyon

Michael Palmer said:


> I know Rick...yes, he's Dr Rick Fell.


http://www.apiculture.ento.vt.edu/people.html

Indeed. A Cornell educated man who has spent a lifetime in entomology, much of it in bee research should have an opinion with some credibility I would think. Everyone has a right to disagree with the man but equating his education level with his likelihood to be telling the truth seems a bit harsh.


----------



## Oldtimer

Well no, the man is just a Dr whose published bee research is mainly related to nosema and pesticides. Why would we expect him to know the slightest thing about bee nutrition even in passing? We'll ignore that nosema and nutrition are strongly entwined and inter linked and he would have studied that closely. Clearly he is also a liar. 

I think it is much more reliable to go with the unqualified yokels participating in this thread, anyone can see they would know more. 

Or, the other view, is that human nature can make us demand insanely high standards of someone before we reluctantly believe them if they hold a different point of view. But we demand no standards at all if they hold the same point of view.


----------



## sqkcrk

bluegrass said:


> I also do not see a PhD after his name when other Faculty bios have them? I would be even less likely to take his word as truth if he is/was a Master level professor and did not hold a doctorate.


Well, sure, but he does hold a Doctorate Degree. Do you feel better about his credibility now?


----------



## beemandan

Oldtimer said:


> Or, the other view, is that human nature can make us demand insanely high standards of someone before we reluctantly believe them if they hold a different point of view. But we demand no standards at all if they hold the same point of view.


This is one of the great truths of human nature. Our egos and opinions become so intertwined that changing, even a simple view, often requires major emotional trauma....and oftentimes the shift is too Herculean to succeed.


----------



## Richard Cryberg

It seems to me this nonsense argument on sucrose being bad for bees has gone on far too long by people who have not bothered to spend five minutes to learn what is in natural nectar that honey bees forage. The main sugar in most nectars is sucrose. Clear up to 100%. That is the same chemical compound present in table sugar, also called cane or beet sugar. The only reasonable conclusion is that sucrose is a perfectly natural carbohydrate feed for honey bees and will do them no harm at all. Sucrose is not a complete diet for honey bees any more than it is for humans. Honey bees need various fats, amino acids and trace minerals in addition. All of those added things are found in pollen. The trace amounts of these non carbohydrates in nectar are of no consequence.

http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/97/5/767.full

The link gives actual chemical analyses for a variety of flowering plants. You should not need a PhD in science to understand it althou I do happen to have a PhD in science.


----------



## Tim Ives

Hmm.. so if I spent $300,000 and waste 6 years for another piece of paper to hang on the wall. I could become creditable. 

I'll spend the $300,000 over the next 6 years to buy more equipment. Course this is dependent on staying "consistently lucky" as Randy Oliver calls it.


----------



## Tim Ives

Richard Cryberg said:


> It seems to me this nonsense argument on sucrose being bad for bees has gone on far too long by people who have not bothered to spend five minutes to learn what is in natural nectar that honey bees forage. The main sugar in most nectars is sucrose. Clear up to 100%. That is the same chemical compound present in table sugar, also called cane or beet sugar. The only reasonable conclusion is that sucrose is a perfectly natural carbohydrate feed for honey bees and will do them no harm at all. Sucrose is not a complete diet for honey bees any more than it is for humans. Honey bees need various fats, amino acids and trace minerals in addition. All of those added things are found in pollen. The trace amounts of these non carbohydrates in nectar are of no consequence.
> 
> http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/97/5/767.full
> 
> The link gives actual chemical analyses for a variety of flowering plants. You should not need a PhD in science to understand it althou I do happen to have a PhD in science.


Gold and Lead are both a metal, therefore they are the same....


----------



## beemandan

Tim Ives said:


> Gold and Lead are both a metal, therefore they are the same....


If you believe that is analogous to the topic....you may want to reconsider spending a few dollars on education.


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

Tim Ives said:


> Gold and Lead are both a metal, therefore they are the same....


I guess it would be _silly _of me to ask for a link supporting this point of view, huh?

:ws:


----------



## rhaldridge

Richard Cryberg said:


> Honey bees need various fats, amino acids and trace minerals in addition. All of those added things are found in pollen. The trace amounts of these non carbohydrates in nectar are of no consequence.


This is probably the root of the disagreement. Some feel that honey is a better feedstock for bees than cane sugar, precisely because it does contain these trace amounts of pollen, as well as enzymes and other inclusions. 

However, the link does not actually support the contention that there is no difference between sugar syrup and nectar. From the study:



> The main goal of this study was to determine whether nectar features are related to the type of pollinator.


Not only is nectar different from syrup, nectars are different from each other.

I must say that it seems very odd to me that so many folks believe there is no significant difference between feeding syrup and feeding honey. If one truly believed this, then one would have no ethical issues with turning colonies into little manufacturing units, feeding them syrup all season, and then harvesting the stored syrup and selling it as honey. And yet I believe that most here would consider that practice to be unethical.

To an outsider like me, this seems like a classic case of cognitive dissonance.


----------



## David LaFerney

rhaldridge said:


> there is no significant difference between feeding syrup and feeding honey.


I don't think that is the prevailing issue - I believe that it is that the difference between syrup and honey is insignificant compared to differnces in the market values of the two.



rhaldridge said:


> and then harvesting the stored syrup and selling it as honey. And yet I believe that most here would consider that practice to be unethical.


It would be illegal as well.

There seems to be an implication that it is common practice for beekeepers to somehow snatch every drop of natural food out of the bees mouths and replace it with HFCS and pollen sub - but I believe that is an extreme exaggeration. I suspect that most bees have a primary diet of honey and pollen which is supplemented to some degree with substitutes. But no, I have no links or studies to site.

My recent personal experience has been that I fed small regular amounts for a few weeks prior to the fall flow to avoid a brood shutdown. The result was not lazy bees, but rather strong healthy hives ready and able to exploit the brief but plentiful goldenrod flow that has occurred. Now they actually have honey to eat this winter instead of having to be fed.


----------



## deknow

Michael Palmer said:


> When one beekeeper I know claimed another beekeeper I know had 5% sucrose in his honey, and that honey should be considered adulterated, I looked at the hive and the honeybee for just what is in honey. Honey has 2.5-7% sucrose.


\

Mike, you seem to have a habit of telling stories that involve me, and distorting them in order to try and make some point. It is to the point that I can't really consider things you tell me about others as reliable. If the story you are relating above is about another beekeeper you know (not me), then please accept my apology in advance.

The full story is a lot more interesting.

We had a bunch of honey tested using the Polarmetrics machine. I still have some questions about the technology, and I wish I had the chance to run some prepared samples through...with that said, all of the honey from unfed apiaries tested pure. Honey from a local beekeeper who does feed (but does so extremely contentiously) tested pure.

Honey from other retail sources did not test so pure...up to 30% beet sugar in one $11/lb of honey "from an organic farm"...which undoubtedly came from the same source as some adulterated honey that Mike got stuck in the middle of. When the developers of the machine tested local hobbyist beekeeper honey, they thought there was something wrong with the machine...the honey didn't test pure....they were unaware that bees fed sugar....they were focused on 'economic adulteration'..purposefully cutting the honey with something cheaper.

One sample from a local commercial beekeeper did test at 5% beet or corn sugar (not 5% sucrose...the nearfield ir technology can differentiate the source). I never would have said that 5% sucrose indicates adulteration.

I talked about what we had found at a state bee meeting (not the state association, but a meeting with the state ag dept), as I feel that Massachusetts beekeepers should be producing Massachusetts honey, not buying in adulterated honey and selling it as their own, and not allowing their own honey to be adulterated through their practices. I believe most sitting around the table has, at one time or another, bought in honey from the same problematic source that had the 30% beet sugar.

I used no names, but the producer of the honey that tested at 5% beet or corn sugar came up to me after the meeting and asked:

"Did you test my honey?"

"Yes" I replied.

"Was it the 5% one?"

"Yes" I replied again.

"...that sounds about right". He was not surprised. He was not offended. He did not doubt the conclusion. He did not claim that it couldn't happen. He did not claim that his bees must have been robbing. ...he said that 5% beet or corn sugar sounds about right for his honey.

Let's face it. If beekeepers wanted to keep feed out of honey, they would dye or flavor the syrup.

What percentage of actual feed is in _your_ pure honey?

deknow


----------



## sqkcrk

So, maybe Michael wasn't refering to you.

Tests you run can tell the difference between beet sugar and corn sugar and identify the sucrose source?


----------



## bluegrass

Richard Cryberg said:


> http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/97/5/767.full
> 
> The link gives actual chemical analyses for a variety of flowering plants. You should not need a PhD in science to understand it althou I do happen to have a PhD in science.


Interesting read: However it appears they were only analyzing 47 varieties of Gentianales in Ecuador... AKA Coffee plants... My bees have never collected any amount of nectar from coffee.


----------



## Acebird

deknow said:


> We had a bunch of honey tested using the Polarmetrics machine. deknow


Is this an infarred scanner that uses polarizing filters and then measures the reflective energy from a surface of the substrate? I trust the technology but you have to know when the readings are off the wall.


----------



## ryan

The BS is deep here even for Beesource. 


If you leave honey on a hive for feed then you are teaching the bees to look inside the hive for food instead of to a floral source. It teaches the exact same lesson to the bees as feeding them type 55 in the fall and then letting them eat it instead of going outside the hive to find a flower.

Argue that honey is better for the bees if you want to. But leaving extra honey in the hive or using feed teaches the EXACT same lesson. Feeding is feeding when it comes to genetic training. Giving or leaving a hive with extra honey to eat IS FEEDING. Honey may be better but it is still feeding.


----------



## Richard Cryberg

bluegrass said:


> Interesting read: However it appears they were only analyzing 47 varieties of Gentianales in Ecuador... AKA Coffee plants... My bees have never collected any amount of nectar from coffee.


 So. spend a few minutes and look up refs for what your bees forage instead of wasting all our time. There are lots and lots and lots of publications on sugars in nectars and all say the same thing. Sucrose is a significant portion of the carbohydrates present in practically all nectars exactly as anyone who has learned any biochemistry would expect. And for all practical purposes there are no nutritively meaningful levels of vitamins, minerals, fats or protein in nectar. Sucrose is also often called beet or cane sugar. It is NOT the same as corn sugar. High fructose corn sugar is approximately what bees make out of nectar after inversion of the sucrose.


----------



## WLC

I thought that Honeybees had a hoarding instinct? They'll continue to store nectar/honey regardless of the source.


----------



## WLC

I've found the levels of other botanical substances, like polyphenolic compounds, to be a challenge when extracting nucleic acids from honey.

Nectar in flowers also contains its own microflora which may be important for Honeybee nutrition. Don't discount natural probiotics when comparing honey to other carbohydrate sources.


----------



## bluegrass

Richard Cryberg said:


> High fructose corn sugar is approximately what bees make out of nectar after inversion of the sucrose.


What do the bees synthesize Invertase and the other necessary enzymes for inversion from?


----------



## Oldtimer

David LaFerney said:


> My recent personal experience has been that I fed small regular amounts for a few weeks prior to the fall flow to avoid a brood shutdown. The result was not lazy bees, but rather strong healthy hives ready and able to exploit the brief but plentiful goldenrod flow that has occurred. Now they actually have honey to eat this winter instead of having to be fed.


Now THAT is the intelligent use of a stimulative feed, and a wise beekeeper.


----------



## bluegrass

WLC said:


> I thought that Honeybees had a hoarding instinct? They'll continue to store nectar/honey regardless of the source.


The "hoarding instinct" is largely a human selected trait. For example Apis Cerana (Asian honey bee) has not been selectively bred for large honey crops and are now threatening Australia's honey industry. They are fine for pollination, but not economical for honey production.


----------



## sqkcrk

Tim Ives said:


> Gold and Lead are both a metal, therefore they are the same....


How do you find time to work bees and be a Director of Photography on NetFlix's "House of Cards"?


----------



## squarepeg

ryan said:


> leaving a hive with extra honey to eat IS FEEDING.


leaving them a portion of what they worked so hard to put up is feeding?



WLC said:


> I've found the levels of other botanical substances, like polyphenolic compounds, to be a challenge when extracting nucleic acids from honey.
> 
> Nectar in flowers also contains its own microflora which may be important for Honeybee nutrition. Don't discount natural probiotics when comparing honey to other carbohydrate sources.


good point, plus there is bound to be other microflora, probiotics, enzymes ect. that combine with the nectar while it is in the bee gut. so it's not really fair to just look at the chemistry of the nectar taken from the plant.

i tend to not use syrup (except on rare occasions as needed) and will continue not to, but after all of this discussion i don't think it is as harmful as i once believed.


----------



## ryan

Sure. That was the whole point of the OP. "if you give bees food they won't need to go out and find it from flowers...you create lazy bees if they don't have to leave the hive to find food."

By that rational if you leave too much honey on a hive you will also create lazy bees because they can just eat the honey instead of visiting flowers. 

Neither idea holds any water.


----------



## Richard Cryberg

bluegrass said:


> What do the bees synthesize Invertase and the other necessary enzymes for inversion from?


Pollen


----------



## psfred

Feeding too much can cause several problems, but "lazy bees" isn't one of the, not unless you select queens for only using sugar syrup rather than foraging. I don't think bees have large enough brains to teach them much of anything.

They will, however, always use the largest and closest source of nectar and generally ignore anything else, so if you feed them constantly they won't forage until you quit feeding. Once that biggest source drys up, they go after something else, and they are always looking even when using a large, close source.

Peter


----------



## BeemanATX

Our bees eat a ton, it can be very surprising at times.


----------



## Oldtimer

bluegrass said:


> The "hoarding instinct" is largely a human selected trait.


A citation for that exists? Please link it.

I think the logic behind this statement is that bees in our hives make far more honey than they need, so therefore, this could not possibly be the case before we started farming them as they could not have stored ever increasing amounts of honey. But the fallacy in this argument is twofold. Bees are able to live in pretty harsh environments and even population densities. So when we put them in a better than harsh environment they can sore a surplus. But what would happen if a hive was wild in this better environment and did not have the honey removed? The answer is they will swarm constantly. Wild hives in a good area can throw 20 or more swarms in a season, they basically convert excess feed into bees and reproduce. OK this was wasteful sure, because once population saturation of any area is achieved then surplus swarms must perish. But the most productive bees are still favoured, because a hive that throws 20 swarms, is still more likely if a niche becomes available, to establish a new colony, than a hive that only throws 5.

What is apparent is that honey has been collected by humans since Biblical times and there was not a whole lot of human led genetic selection up to that point. It is only since the invention of the Langstroth hive that bees have been selected for anything much other than swarming, and I believe bees in Langs performed just as well when the reverend was alive, as they do now. Relative to environment of course.


----------



## Joseph Clemens

Logically, lazy bees would even be difficult to create.

It is the nature of bees to collect nectar and pollen, whenever it is available, and as much of both as they can, stockpiling it in their combs, and building more combs to hold more, until there is no more space for additional combs.

Others may have had different experiences, but my experience has been that even when feeding, my bees continue to forage, and sometimes they will reject my feed for forage. That is especially true during our mesquite flow. Apparently mesquite nectar is much more attractive than sugar syrup or even honey.

Lazy bees would be bees that, if necessary resources were provided to them, would then, not forage for additional resources. I have yet to experience bees that limit their foraging, unless they have no additional space to accommodate additional resources. Healthy, strong, queenright colonies, with room for expansion, will forage until they fill that space.


----------



## sqkcrk

ryan said:


> Sure. That was the whole point of the OP. "if you give bees food they won't need to go out and find it from flowers...you create lazy bees if they don't have to leave the hive to find food."
> 
> By that rational if you leave too much honey on a hive you will also create lazy bees because they can just eat the honey instead of visiting flowers.
> 
> Neither idea holds any water.


Well, 16.5 to 18.5% maybe. lol


----------



## bluegrass

Richard Cryberg said:


> Pollen


It is actually a yeast derived enzyme. They synthesize it from sugar, primarily glucose... They need the glucose to synthesize invertase, to hydrolyze sucrose, into glucose and fructose.... to use the free glucose to synthesize invertase.....it is a vicious cycle.


----------



## beemandan

bluegrass said:


> The "hoarding instinct" is largely a human selected trait.


Oh my....inventing facts again. The hoarding instinct is surely a product of natural selection...allowing Apis mellifera to survive in temperate climates long before man ever got his fingers wet with honey.


----------



## deknow

bluegrass said:


> It is actually a yeast derived enzyme. They synthesize it from sugar, primarily glucose... They need the glucose to synthesize invertase, to hydrolyze sucrose, into glucose and fructose.... to use the free glucose to synthesize invertase.....it is a vicious cycle.


Interesting. The bee literature all says that the bees produce invertase in the hypophrangial gland...yet older bees with atrophied hypphrangial glands are found to have just as much invertase in their guts.

My assumption has been that it is produced by gut bacteria. I know of some very preliminary work that doesn't rule this out...but no one has looked into it closely (as far as I know).

The microbiology world is very specialized these days.....I know a bacteria person and a fungi person...but I'll have to ask around to see who is looking at the yeasts.

Interestingly, Martha Gilliam was unable to find yeasts in the guts of the bees she looked at in Arizona (until they were stressed in some way...confined, fed, medicated/poisoned). She would only have been able to find yeasts that she could culture in those days, and there may be something she missed.

Do you have a source for the yeast as a source for invertase?

deknow


----------



## Michael Palmer

deknow said:


> Mike, you seem to have a habit of telling stories that involve me,
> 
> What percentage of actual feed is in _your_ pure honey?
> 
> deknow


I didn't use any names Dean, you did. I stand by what I said. If you want to debate this issue we should invite all involved to speak up. I think it sucks that you test other beekeeper's honey and use the results...no matter how sketchy those results might be...against them in the market place. I say sketchy because I believe that the 5% level is within margin of error.

How much feed is in my honey? The way and the amount I feed, I would say negligible. 

How much feed is in your honey Dean? Oh yeah...you buy the honey you sell. Do you have any of your own honey? Or did your bees die again? 

Did you not buy package bees in the spring of 2012, to replace your dead-outs? Did you not keep them in your basement until the weather was suitable for installation? Did they not survive on sugar syrup? 

Maybe the real story is more interesting?


----------



## bluegrass

Oldtimer said:


> A citation for that exists? Please link it.


Generally peer reviewed research is not available for free on the internet, but you can start at your local library and pull these: 
Page, R. E Jr, K. D. Waddington, G. J. Hunt, and M. K. Fondrk. Genetic determinants of honey bee foraging behaviour. Anim. Behav 50:1617–1625. 1995
This one touches on the subject also: 
Henderson, C. R. Statistical methods in animal improvementhistorical overview. D. Gianola K. Hammond Advances in statistical methods for genetic improvement of livestock. Adv. Ser. Agric. Sci. 18 1990. 2-14. Springer Berlin.

Or you can read Brother Adam's "Selecting for the best strain of honey bee"

I don't know what types of hives you use in the land down under, but you can compare common US langstroth hive body volumes to old world common hives like the National hive or WBC hive. Note that New World bees require much larger volume boxes than Old World bees.


----------



## Oldtimer

None of that shows hoarding honey is a man bred phenomena.

Latest per hive honey production at Buckfast Abbey was I believe, in the order of 30 to 40 lb's annually.


----------



## WBVC

ryan said:


> genetic training. .


Could you please expand upon the concept of "genetics training"...just what it is and how it works.

Thanks


----------



## bluegrass

deknow said:


> Interesting. The bee literature all says that the bees produce invertase in the hypophrangial gland..


 it is; the literature actually uses the term "synthesized" and that can't be done magically without there being two or more elements to begin with.



> My assumption has been that it is produced by gut bacteria


Bacteria can't produce anything without a food source



> Do you have a source for the yeast as a source for invertase?
> 
> deknow


Just google invertase: it is commonly manufactured for commercial use.


----------



## Oldtimer

Since the term "fact invention" was coined in this thread, I have realised just how common it is, now there is a name on it. 

I read threads with a whole new level of suspicion.


----------



## bluegrass

Oldtimer said:


> Latest per hive honey production at Buckfast Abbey was I believe, in the order of 30 to 40 lb's annually.


 Maybe their bees are lazy from all the sugar they feed.

Brother Adam reported much higher yields... Perhaps his lifetime of work has all eroded in the near 20 years since his death.


----------



## bluegrass

Oldtimer said:


> Since the term "fact invention" was coined in this thread, I have realised just how common it is, now there is a name on it.
> 
> I read threads with a whole new level of suspicion.


And this is why I generally do not provide sources: The group here discredits them without even actually reading them... Pulling them out of my note books is a waste of 30 minutes of my life.


----------



## ryan

WBVC 
It was a made-up statement. Should have read "genetics OR training" Feeding wont cause bees to lazy due to genetic selection. Feeding wont make bees lazy by training them to look inside the hive for food instead of to flowers. Honey left in a hive would do the same thing as sugar. All of this is IMHO. Sorry to confuse you. I thought the 2 ideas were non-sense. Any intended humor was evidently lost in the text.


----------



## Barry

Hey, I got it the first time!


----------



## sqkcrk

Good for u. Got what?


----------



## Barry

His intended humor.


----------



## WBVC

ryan said:


> WBVC
> It was a made-up statement. Should have read "genetics OR training" Feeding wont cause bees to lazy due to genetic selection. Feeding wont make bees lazy by training them to look inside the hive for food instead of to flowers. Honey left in a hive would do the same thing as sugar. All of this is IMHO. Sorry to confuse you. I thought the 2 ideas were non-sense. Any intended humor was evidently lost in the text.


Thanks..I thought it was nonsense as well....but you never know


----------



## Richard Cryberg

bluegrass said:


> It is actually a yeast derived enzyme. They synthesize it from sugar, primarily glucose... They need the glucose to synthesize invertase, to hydrolyze sucrose, into glucose and fructose.... to use the free glucose to synthesize invertase.....it is a vicious cycle.


Very nice invention of facts, but not true for either bees nor yeasts. In fact pure nonsense.


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

Those of us interested in bee nutrition, but not in the BS piling up here may be interested to read for themselves, "*Honey Bee Nutrition"*:
http://www.beeccdcap.uga.edu/documents/CAPArticle10.html

I don't claim to have "_more degrees than a thermometer"_ like some here,  but the article strikes me as pretty straightforward. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:


----------



## jim lyon

Nice link RS. A good basic primer about the complexities of bee nutrition.


----------



## WLC

Suppose you wanted to make your bees 'lazy' on purpose.

Is there a syrup supplement that bees would prefer over nectar?

You know, 'Nine out of ten bees prefer syrup supplemented with _Lazy Bee_ compared to flower nectar.'


----------



## Oldtimer

Would not a man with more degrees than a thermometer already know that?


----------



## Gino45

ryan said:


> The BS is deep here even for Beesource.
> 
> Argue that honey is better for the bees if you want to. But leaving extra honey in the hive or using feed teaches the EXACT same lesson. Feeding is feeding when it comes to genetic training. Giving or leaving a hive with extra honey to eat IS FEEDING. Honey may be better but it is still feeding.


I've got to disagree with this one. Honey stored in combs in the hive is not the same as feeding, whether it be honey or sugar being fed. I've yet to see bees fail to go after available nectar if they had combs available for storage. Now it may be a different story if one was actually feeding them and they were having to deal with that. But I certainly am not an expert on that as I seldom feed bees other than small hives. And these I give honey, fwiw.


----------



## bluegrass

Richard Cryberg said:


> Very nice invention of facts, but not true for either bees nor yeasts. In fact pure nonsense.


Then feel free to explain the process in your own words.


----------



## WLC

Oldtimer said:


> Would not a man with more degrees than a thermometer already know that?


I've heard that Megabee can be fed as a syrup. But, I don't now if it makes em lazy.


----------



## beemandan

Oldtimer said:


> I read threads with a whole new level of suspicion.


Inventing facts makes any realistic internet debate difficult to impossible. I don't think it is always intentional. I suspect that many are simply unable to distinguish their opinions from facts.


----------



## Richard Cryberg

bluegrass said:


> Then feel free to explain the process in your own words.


Invertase is a 50kilodalton (+/- depending on source) protein. All proteins are made from amino acids. Bees can not make amino acids from sugar. They get their amino acids from pollen just like I said. Anyone who has taken high school biology should know that much. If you want to understand more I need to know if I need to teach you differential equations before you are going to understand anything beyond what I have said.

By the way, as you fear signing a real name as far as I am concerned in the future you do not exist. Only trolls refuse to sign their own name.

Dick


----------



## Saltybee

If you do not want to deal with a troll , do not crawl under the bridge.


----------



## beemandan

Richard Cryberg said:


> Very nice invention of facts


It has become something of an epidemic....hasn't it?


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

If you want to know more, but don't want to recall _differential equations_ (or never learned them), the article I linked in post #284 is a good start.


I sign with *half *a real name!  :lookout: :lpf:


----------



## sqkcrk

Richard Cryberg said:


> By the way, as you fear signing a real name as far as I am concerned in the future you do not exist. Only trolls refuse to sign their own name.
> 
> Dick


Well, aren't you all superior and stuff. His name is Dan. What's your problem?

What about similarity equations? Don't we emphasize the differentials a little too much?


----------



## deknow

WLC said:


> Suppose you wanted to make your bees 'lazy' on purpose.
> Is there a syrup supplement that bees would prefer over nectar?
> You know, 'Nine out of ten bees prefer syrup supplemented with _Lazy Bee_ compared to flower nectar.'


...don't have an opinion on the question posed. I do know that some claim that HFCS will keep the bees fed without stimulating them too much...that sucrose and HFCS have very different impacts on the bees. I've never used HFCS so I have no opinion.

Also worth noting something that Allen Dick brought up on Bee-l a couple of years ago. Bees on treated crops are sometimes fed pollen sub in order to reduce the amount of contaminated pollen being brought into the hive...there is definitely a feedback loop wrt protein...the more available in the hive, the fewer foragers are given pollen duty. So feeding pollen sub could be seen as making bees lazy wrt collecting pollen.

deknow


----------



## Saltybee

deknow said:


> ...there is definitely a feedback loop wrt protein...the more available in the hive, the fewer foragers are given pollen duty. So feeding pollen sub could be seen as making bees lazy wrt collecting pollen.
> 
> deknow


On the other hand, feeding syrup when stores are low will cause more foragers to gather pollen.

Feeding is good or bad only after looking at the hive.


----------



## David LaFerney

In my area it seems that pollen is plentiful all season long even during a dearth of nectar. In recent years my strong hives have consistently stored much more pollen than they could use - with whole frames of it getting old and hard and going unused. This year we have had steady rainfall and pollen flows - and not such excessive pollen storage. Not really an argument, just an observation. Sorry 'bout that.


----------



## JWChesnut

The enzyme invertase is an amino acid protein chain 432 bases units long, twisted and curled.
It's composition in proteins is:
Amino acid composition: 
Ala (A) 12 2.8%
Arg (R) 22 5.1%
Asn (N) 23 5.3%
Asp (D) 26 6.0%
Cys (C) 5 1.2%
Gln (Q) 5 1.2%
Glu (E) 42 9.7%
Gly (G) 33 7.6%
His (H) 11 2.5%
Ile (I) 21 4.9%
Leu (L) 35 8.1%
Lys (K) 30 6.9%
Met (M) 9 2.1%
Phe (F) 25 5.8%
Pro (P) 17 3.9%
Ser (S) 28 6.5%
Thr (T) 23 5.3%
Trp (W) 11 2.5%
Tyr (Y) 17 3.9%
Val (V) 37 8.6%
Pyl (O) 0 0.0%
Sec (U) 0 0.0%

Ref: http://web.expasy.org/cgi-bin/protparam/[email protected]@

My editorial comment -- There is a lot of very sloppy promotion of "pet" theories by folks with quasi-religious beliefs in non-intervention beekeeping. The posturing obscures their good intentions with falsifiable fairy tails. I think a philosophical opposition to industrial scale farming is a fine and worthwhile thing for the well-heeled urbane hobbyists and starry-eyed dreamers, but don't confuse the made-up postulates with real science, please.


----------



## WBVC

Rader Sidetrack;1003011 "[B said:


> Honey Bee Nutrition"[/B]:
> http://www.beeccdcap.uga.edu/documents/CAPArticle10.html


This was an interesting,and for me,an informative article.

In the section on pollen and protein they rated protein supplements on hive performance, palatability and soya content. They used 3 products...it seems there are a lot more out there that weren't tested.

When I first purchased my bees I fed syrup and protein patties. I then searched the net..including this forum...for home made protein patties. The majority contained a lot of soya flour plus brewers yeast,skim milk powder, oil,sugar and water. I sourced the ingredients, made up a batch and fed it to my bees. The nutrition article points out that soya flour is not well digested and can be harmful to bees.
I still have some home made patties in the freezer. 

Question: put them in the hives or in the trash?

Janne (for those who don't read posts unless they have a name)


----------



## WBVC

JWChesnut said:


> The enzyme invertase is an amino acid protein chain 432 bases units long, twisted and curled.
> It's composition in proteins is:
> Amino acid composition:
> Ala (A) 12 2.8%
> Arg (R) 22 5.1%
> Asn (N) 23 5.3%
> Asp (D) 26 6.0%
> Cys (C) 5 1.2%
> Gln (Q) 5 1.2%
> Glu (E) 42 9.7%
> Gly (G) 33 7.6%
> His (H) 11 2.5%
> Ile (I) 21 4.9%
> Leu (L) 35 8.1%
> Lys (K) 30 6.9%
> Met (M) 9 2.1%
> Phe (F) 25 5.8%
> Pro (P) 17 3.9%
> Ser (S) 28 6.5%
> Thr (T) 23 5.3%
> Trp (W) 11 2.5%
> Tyr (Y) 17 3.9%
> Val (V) 37 8.6%
> Pyl (O) 0 0.0%
> Sec (U) 0 0.0%
> 
> Ref: http://web.expasy.org/cgi-bin/protparam/[email protected]@
> 
> My editorial comment -- There is a lot of very sloppy promotion of "pet" theories by folks with quasi-religious beliefs in non-intervention beekeeping. The posturing obscures their good intentions with falsifiable fairy tails. I think a philosophical opposition to industrial scale farming is a fine and worthwhile thing for the well-heeled urbane hobbyists and starry-eyed dreamers, but don't confuse the made-up postulates with real science, please.


Sorry...everyone has a right to their own opinion...but...as a new beek and quite new to this forum I believe I have read a fair bit of posturing on both sides of the to/not to treat debate.
Folks who choose to farm organically or follow non treatment practices in beekeeping are not by definition starry eyed dreamers or well healed urbanites.
Where I live organic farming is large scale and profitable. Initially organic farmers were scoffed at...not so much now when in many niches their product is both sought after and carries a higher selling price.
Just because someone has had the desire,and opportunity to obtain a formal education does not mean that those who have not are any less intelligent or able...in their own niche they in fact may be very learned without any formal education.
Just my 2 cents in the petty debate that runs beneath this thread

Oh yes...Janne


----------



## Saltybee

WBVC said:


> Question: put them in the hives or in the trash?
> 
> Janne (for those who don't read posts unless they have a name)


Soy is only a problem in high concentrations as are most things. If they need pollen and there is little available put them in, if not, leave them in the freezer.

I do not care if you do or do not read this!


----------



## JWChesnut

Janne,
Welcome to beekeeping. You will need to run many experiments to determine what husbandry practices result in performance in your climate. Do not confuse your preconceptions for what actually works. The core advice for experimental husbandry: change only one variable at a time -- so start with plain-vanilla Langstroth equipment and test *single* adjustments (in replicate groups) individually against controls.

I run an open-ended experiment in non-treatment (since 2002) at an isolated mountain yard. I use captured swarms in Langstroth equipment with a mix of either full foundation or foundationless. I do not treat this experimental group until a serious mite problem (DWV crawlers + 20 mites in sugar shake) express. When I treat I move these unfortunate hives into a recovery yard, and if they survive integrate the now-treated hives into the commercial group.

The results: The non-treated hives acquire lethal levels of mite+virus at year 2 or year 3. ALL THE TIME.

I have no idea how the guru's of non-treatment accomplish their miracles. Their claims are fundamentally non-replicable in Coastal California. I suspect fraud and wishful thinking, but these guru's seem honest and forthright, so perhaps their climate and isolation out in the cornfields is ideal.

My irritation with the non-treatment advocates comes from my constant interaction with naive and gullible young novice beekeepers that come to me for advice on keeping their feral-small-cell-8-frame-medium hives, and will not listen when I tell them they have bought into an internet fairy tale (at least for my climate). I have wasted hours of my life mentoring folks whose hives are doomed because they don't believe me when I tell them half of what is written on the intertubes is pure snake-oil and bunkum.


----------



## WBVC

Saltybee said:


> Soy is only a problem in high concentrations as are most things. If they need pollen and there is little available put them in, if not, leave them in the freezer.
> 
> I do not care if you do or do not read this!


Thanks...I will feed them to the slower hives.

Janne


----------



## WBVC

Re treating...I have treated all hives with MAQS in August. I had hoped to treat all hives with fumigilin in Sept....but 3 had unused syrup and I am waiting...perhaps until it is too cold...to use fumigilin as I felt if they aren't taking freak 2:1 in clean feeders what hope of them taking the fumigilin. A few of the hives have consumed the fumigilin...most still have it sitting in the feeders after 1 week.
A lot of mites fell from most after treating. 
I did take the gastro intestinal tract out of several bees...squashed that on slides, fixed, stained and looked for nosema spores...did not see any but that could be my inexperience rather than problem free.
Interesting in the hive that has been the weakest all summer...went Queenless...or came Queenless..and later requeened with purchased mated queen...has taken all the fumigilin provided. Also interesting is that they won't t ouch a hive top feeder but eat well from jars inverted directly over their frames.
Janne


----------



## beemandan

WBVC said:


> Also interesting is that they won't t ouch a hive top feeder but eat well from jars inverted directly over their frames.


Now.....them are some LAZY bees!!


----------



## AR Beekeeper

In the good old days I didn't like to leave the warm bed covers to get breakfast either. But wait, I am lazy!


----------

