I read that a good portion of honey is adulterated with sugar. First thought is that there's a lot of dishonest people out there. But maybe something else is happening.
I'm against feeding my bees sugar water. However, I'm against my bees starving to death. It's very sad seeing their heads stuck in a cell slurping up the last bit of honey before perishing.
So I have to feed them so they can make it through the winter. But some don't make it for whatever reason. I thought one hive was alive because there was lots of activity this spring. They were being cleaned out. This summer, my biggest hive picks on my little hives. If I hadn't been paying attention, I would see my little hive using up all their sugar water I fed them, but my big hive is bringing in the nectar!
So while there is the issue of dishonest people mixing sugar water or corn syrup with honey, and there is the issue of people turning sugar water into "honey" by feeding it to the bees and then selling it, and there is the issue of ignorant people not getting their supers off on time or understanding they need to, there is another issue that can be happening. Suppose one is very cautious about feeding sugar water at only certain times. However, if they have multiple hives, start nucs and feed them, then a hive or nuc dies, what happens to the sugar water? And even if that doesn't happen, do bees never move sugar water out of their brood boxes? What happens when the beekeeper swaps brood boxes in the spring and adds a super on top all without any additional feeding? Do bees never move any around? I think they do, at least under certain conditions.
And then there's the situation where a beekeeper feeds no sugar water, but his neighbor feeds, feeds, feeds. What if his hive dies, where does that sugar water go?
The best policy is never to feed, then there's no contamination. Or feed early so that it's all used up by the time nectar starts coming in. But I think that would be impossible to calculate for every year.