Welcome, Guest

Author Topic: Bad water into good honey?  (Read 2484 times)

Offline Stone

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 163
  • Gender: Male
Bad water into good honey?
« on: July 20, 2011, 01:18:24 pm »
Just curious.  No one would advise that a person ever kneel at a flowing stream or a pristine (looking) pond and drink deeply of the water within.  Likely twenty four hours later or less, one would deeply regret it.  Any camper can tell you this.

How is it then that bees can use for themselves the water from such sources (and worse) and produce honey fit for consumption??

Offline zzen01

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 104
  • Gender: Male
Re: Bad water into good honey?
« Reply #1 on: July 20, 2011, 02:54:10 pm »
G*D made 'em that way. To make us clueless humans ask why.  :?

Offline Stone

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 163
  • Gender: Male
Re: Bad water into good honey?
« Reply #2 on: July 20, 2011, 03:13:04 pm »
Your reply was both good humored and good natured.  :)  Thanks.

But I really am curious for a particular reason.  Throughout a cutout I was doing recently, I had to use water from a very questionable source to clean my knife, my hands, my cutting board.  I forgot and ate some of the honey that the water came into contact with.  I paid for it the next few days.  I thought of feeding this back to the bees but I'm hesitant.  I don't want to risk tainting the honey they make or contaminating the hive in any way. (Actually, as I think of it,  the hive was already tainted in the act of using that knife to cut through the comb with brood and honey!)

And that's when I started thinking of the question I posted.  We certainly don't know where bees get their moisture from. I saw honeybees go to a puddle of animal urine once.  They sure must have one heck of a filtration system!  Or maybe organisms that affect us do not affect them.

So if anyone knows what the explanation is, I sure would like to know.
« Last Edit: July 20, 2011, 04:18:12 pm by Stone »

Offline mikecva

  • Field Bee
  • ***
  • Posts: 983
Re: Bad water into good honey?
« Reply #3 on: July 20, 2011, 04:08:19 pm »
Organisms and good old bacteria is what got you. The bees do not have such a problem when processing the water. I do have problems with bad water so I drink Guinness. If I am outside watching the hive (10' away) and am not careful, my bees will drink Guinness also.   :cheer: :lau: :lau: :lau:  -Mike
.
Listen to others but make your own decisions. That way you own the results.
.
Please remember to read labels.

Offline Stone

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 163
  • Gender: Male
Re: Bad water into good honey?
« Reply #4 on: July 20, 2011, 04:19:17 pm »
Guinness is good.  I like Pinot Grigio.  :)

Offline Scadsobees

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 3198
  • Gender: Male
  • Best use of smileys in a post award.
Re: Bad water into good honey?
« Reply #5 on: July 20, 2011, 04:33:58 pm »
Same reason you don't see squirrels, deer, and racoons bent over retching!  :roll:

a) the organisms don't attack their species
b) if they did, the bees build up immunity

If you drank that water with any regularity, after a period of super-regularity :-D you'd probably not have any other problems, other than some parasites.

After all, our ancestors all had to drink that water, and they weren't incapacitated that way on a regular basis, even if they did die at age 40.
Rick

Offline caticind

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 385
  • Nothing sweeter...
Re: Bad water into good honey?
« Reply #6 on: July 20, 2011, 05:19:29 pm »
Bees like water with a bit of smell to it, and will often prefer water containing chlorine or sewage over "pure" sources.  My bees get their water out of the runoff creek from the water treatment plant up the street.  Well, that's what I tell myself, but I bet they get it from the settling ponds too.  Ugh.

The bees themselves either have the intestinal fortitude to withstand whatever pathogens are in the water, or in many cases, have "intestines" that are not targeted by the bugs that would make us sick.  I'm sure my girls pick up plenty of e.coli, but e.coli only selects warm blooded animals for hosts and does not colonize the bee gut, so no symptoms.

As for the honey, it is so acidic and hygroscopic that few microbes can survive in it and even fewer can reproduce.  So say a bee lands by the sewage plant and steps in e. coli-contaminated water.  It tracks some of those bacteria into the hive, and maybe a few end up in a cell of honey.....and they die right there because honey is a deadly environment for bacteria.  If you licked the comb, or accidentally ingested contaminated water along with the honey like you did with your cutout, then you might get sick, but the honey by itself is very nearly sterile.
The bees would be no help; they would tumble over each other like golden babies and thrum wordlessly on the subjects of queens and sex and pollen-gluey feet. -Palimpsest

Offline caticind

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 385
  • Nothing sweeter...
Re: Bad water into good honey?
« Reply #7 on: July 20, 2011, 05:23:35 pm »
After all, our ancestors all had to drink that water, and they weren't incapacitated that way on a regular basis, even if they did die at age 40.

Learned in an archaeology class I once took that forensic analysis of old skeletons shows that, at least after the development of agriculture, something like a third of people died from sepsis caused by dental abscesses.  Death by bad water might be more merciful.
The bees would be no help; they would tumble over each other like golden babies and thrum wordlessly on the subjects of queens and sex and pollen-gluey feet. -Palimpsest

Offline rbinhood

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 278
  • Gender: Male
Re: Bad water into good honey?
« Reply #8 on: July 20, 2011, 05:34:14 pm »
I take it that not many of you have spent much time around a cow pasture....those big piles of brown stuff is often covered with bees.  I can tell you one thing those brown piles of stuff are not pecan pies.....but bees find something in them that they really like and it ain't water...I don't think!
Only God can make these two things.....Blood and Honey!

Offline iddee

  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 10853
  • Gender: Male
Re: Bad water into good honey?
« Reply #9 on: July 20, 2011, 05:49:05 pm »
I think scads hit it when he said you would build an immunity to it. I drank the water from creeks and springs the whole time I was growing up, and never had a problem. Until I found an apple tree with green apples. I always loved them, but they refused to stay around long.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*

Offline AllenF

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 8192
  • Gender: Male
Re: Bad water into good honey?
« Reply #10 on: July 20, 2011, 05:57:39 pm »
Honey has some antibacterial properties to it.   That's always a good thing with the way some people bottle honey.   

Offline Stone

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 163
  • Gender: Male
Re: Bad water into good honey?
« Reply #11 on: July 20, 2011, 06:14:36 pm »
Thank you all for your input. Very informative. And caticind, your explanation makes things very clear....and makes me feel a whole lot better.  I was going to dump about ten pounds of honey into the stream before this discussion.   This forum has been wonderful. :)


Offline annette

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 5353
  • Gender: Female
Re: Bad water into good honey?
« Reply #12 on: July 21, 2011, 02:47:18 am »
Michael Bush posted here about how the bees can filter out the impurities in the water. Can't remember exactly. Anyone remember?


Offline Michael Bush

  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 19832
  • Gender: Male
    • bushfarms.com
Re: Bad water into good honey?
« Reply #13 on: July 21, 2011, 04:20:20 am »
Bees can filter very small particles all the way down to a pollen grain through their tongue.  I wouldn't bet on bacteria though... but they can filter out a lot of microscopic parasites.
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
-------------------
"Everything works if you let it."--James "Big Boy" Medlin