Feeding sugar after honey extraction

[SouthAussieBeekeeper]

This sort of practice is seen as controversial amongst the general public; my experience with selling to people, is that feeding the bees sugar is a primary concern.

I'm not sure why feeding bees sugar is deemed controversial. It is a fact that bees are unable to receive the required nutrients from sugar, but would the bee's health and well-being suffer if they've been fed a small amount of sugar after a honey extraction, which would happen a few times a year?

If the bees are fed sugar, I believe they can then make honey out of it. Does this create an inferior honey product, compared to if the bees created honey from nectar? Is this the main concern of the general public when they ask whether the bees was fed sugar? Is this a risk even if the sugar has had water added to it, turning it into a paste?

Do any of you guys actually feed sugar to your bees after an extraction, or do you just leave sugar feeding when the bees might potentially starve otherwise? I believe it's popular to feed sugar paste to a split, or captured swarm in a nuc, as they can use the sugar to build wax. Might this practice be good also when going to provide a new super for a preexisting established hive, which has frames that hasn't been drawn out yet?

I'm also interested in good methods in actually feeding sugar paste. I see that there's many ideas and approaches, but a lot of them involve using an alternative lid, with a hole on the top with a bottle that slowly drips sugar paste down to the bees. I don't check my bees regularly and have a limited supply of lids, so I'm apprehensive of doing this. In the past, I've added sugar paste to cup cake sachets, and I've placed these on the bee mate inside the hive. It seemed to work but it was inefficient as the cup cake sachets could only contain a small amount of sugar paste (as it had to have a shallow amount to prevent bees from drowning).

[Acebird]

If the bees are fed sugar, I believe they can then make honey out of it. Does this create an inferior honey product, compared to if the bees created honey from nectar?

In our country it is against the law.  It is called adulterated honey.  It would be no different then adding sugar water to honey and then drying it down.
The purpose of feed is to sustain the colony when they can't collect nectar so it gets consumed and used for life support.  It can also be used to induce brooding and making wax, again consumed.  It should never be used to make honey for human consumption.

[BeeMaster2]

When bees store sugar water, it is not honey. This is what the Chinese do and try to sell it to the US. It is illegal to import Chinese Honey here.
Jim

[sc-bee]

If the bees are fed sugar, I believe they can then make honey out of it. Does this create an inferior honey product, compared to if the bees created honey from nectar?

In our country it is against the law.  It is called adulterated honey.  It would be no different then adding sugar water to honey and then drying it down.
The purpose of feed is to sustain the colony when they can't collect nectar so it gets consumed and used for life support.  It can also be used to induce brooding and making wax, again consumed.  It should never be used to make honey for human consumption.

Against the law our unethical? Could you show me the law? I am not saying there is none, I am just curious as to where I can find it in writing?

Edited: I did find this in the codes thanks-
III. Questions and Answers (Q & A)
To further provide guidance to industry on the proper labeling of honey and honey products in
accordance with our laws and regulations, we have developed the following questions and
answers.
1. What is honey?
Reference materials in the public domain define honey as ?a thick, sweet, syrupy
substance that bees make as food from the nectar of plants or secretions of living parts of
plants and store in honeycombs.?2 FDA has concluded that this definition accurately
reflects the common usage of the term ?honey.?

[Acebird]

Selling honey that is adulterated with sugar is fraud.  Any additive added to honey must come under FDA regulatory procedures to get approved for human consumption.

[Sledin]

Here in Manitoba most bees wouldn't survive without being fed at the end of the flow, a lot of our honey is canola which makes big crystals that the bees can't feed on for the winter.
Standard is to pull the supers and feed 4 gallons of 1:1 sugar syrup. Since the bees are just filling the brood box there isn't any sugar in the supers.


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[cao]

IMO there is feeding without supers on and feeding with supers on. 

The first is for spring build up or in the fall for overwintering or for building up splits.  Although it is better for the bees to have nectar or honey there are times when it may be necessary to feed sugar.  I don't see anything wrong in that case. 

The second is unethical at the very least if you are selling honey.  That is where the concern comes from the public.  Is there sugar in the honey?

[sc-bee]

Selling honey that is adulterated with sugar is fraud.  Any additive added to honey must come under FDA regulatory procedures to get approved for human consumption.

Two total different things...feeding honey to bees and bees placing it in the hive is not an "additive added to honey" An additive added to honey is ie cutting honey with HFCS.

I do agree however, both are adulterated honey and the feeding syrup would be covered under the definition I posted above....it is not  "the nectar of plants or secretions of living parts of plants and store in honeycombs" but also not an additive...

[SouthAussieBeekeeper]

Do you guys physically remove the honey supers and leave only the brood chambers on at certain times? How do you manage the mess and storage of that? I pretty much always leave my honeysupers on, I tend to only remove or add depending on hive strength.

When the consumers talk about adding sugar to honey, do you guys think they're referring to this practice, of giving the bees sugar paste that's turned into a honey like substance? Or might they be more concerned with stirring a sugar syrup into a finished honey product to dilute it?

I do believe there is good times to feed them sugar paste even when there isn't a risk of starvation. It might just be when they're small enough to not have honey supers. It'd be good if there was a way to have the bees only use it to eat and make wax out of!

I don't know the law, but it strikes me as extreme if it'd be considered fraud if one sells honey and less than 1% of it is the product of sugar cane. I read that some use colour dye in their sugar syrup so that they can clearly visually tell if some comb in the hive was created by sugar paste.

[Acebird]

feeding honey to bees and bees placing it in the hive is not an "additive added to honey"

It is an additive when the beekeeper mixes the honey with sugar water at the time of extraction.
The test for honey would be the same procedures used in all tests.  The honey would be declared "adulterated" and rejected as honey.  The regulators do not care how the added sugar got into the honey.  It would be up to the manufacturer to determine that.  Then the manufacturer would have to file a corrective action plan to insure it does not happen again.  This takes quite a long time and the outcome does not guarantee you will have the right to produce in the future.  In the mean time you would be shut down.
Now if the adulteration was intentional there could be jail time.  Because it is fraud.

[sc-bee]

feeding honey to bees and bees placing it in the hive is not an "additive added to honey"

It is an additive when the beekeeper mixes the honey with sugar water at the time of extraction.
The test for honey would be the same procedures used in all tests.  The honey would be declared "adulterated" and rejected as honey.  The regulators do not care how the added sugar got into the honey.  It would be up to the manufacturer to determine that.  Then the manufacturer would have to file a corrective action plan to insure it does not happen again.  This takes quite a long time and the outcome does not guarantee you will have the right to produce in the future.  In the mean time you would be shut down.
Now if the adulteration was intentional there could be jail time.  Because it is fraud.

Bottom line we are saying the same thing it is adulterated.... that is all that matters... regardless of the terminology

[Acebird]

Agreed.  I just wanted to make the point that adulteration can occur unintentionally and intentionally.  The FDA would treat it the same.

[The15thMember]

  "the nectar of plants or secretions of living parts of plants and store in honeycombs"

Does that definition mean that honeydew honey is not approved by the FDA, since honeydew is a secretion of an insect and not a plant?

[Acebird]

  "the nectar of plants or secretions of living parts of plants and store in honeycombs"

Does that definition mean that honeydew honey is not approved by the FDA, since honeydew is a secretion of an insect and not a plant?

If it can be detected, yes.  My gut feeling is if it happened naturally it would be hard to detect.  It might be considered a contaminant of acceptable levels.

[SouthAussieBeekeeper]

How can feeding sugar war induce brood production? Can this be an effective strategy when coming out of Winter, into a Spring with a good flow, to give the bees a little jump start? Are there methods to prevent them from storing it, to consume it instead? Is it best to mix it with a dye so that if they do store it, it's easily spotted?

[sc-bee]

The chances of someone checking in the US IMHO is nill. The test is expensive and unless someone signals you out for some reason it ain't likely to happen, at least in my parts. This whole law is based on and intended to target folks cutting honey with HFCS or imports that are not honey and instead are honey blends.

South Aussie folks usually mark supers as they feed and add new supers during a flow and keep the sugar supers separated...

[Acebird]

The chances of someone checking in the US IMHO is nill. The test is expensive and unless someone signals you out for some reason it ain't likely to happen,

Yep.  Pretty much agree.  About the only way a small guy might get pinched is selling to a big guy that sells to Walmart or a Nabisco.  The only people testing are the big guys or their customers.  However in the small guy world what you have to worry about is word of mouth.  A few bad accusations on FB and you could be done for.