Honey bees aren’t an endangered species; they’re causing chaos

Yes, everyone loves them and keeping them has become a green hobby, but they’d feel differently if a swarm besieged their home

By Antonia Hoyle

Antonia Hoyle: ‘I frantically vacuumed them up and deposited them outside as fast as they arrived’ CREDIT: Geoff Pugh for The Telegraph

For days, there were only a few, upstairs – blown in through a window, I assumed, by the late spring breeze. But then more came downstairs, gaining ominously in number until one morning three weeks ago, I walked into the living room to find hundreds of the creatures crawling, seemingly lethargic, over the carpet.

“Wasps!” I wailed to my analyst husband, Chris, who like me is 44. I frantically vacuumed them up and deposited them outside as fast as they arrived, until the pest controller arrived at our location home. Pointing at a cloud of black dots dancing around our third-floor chimney, he corrected me: “You’ve got honey bees.”

Being gatecrashed by sugar plum fairies would have been simpler, and less controversial, to navigate. While not illegal, pesticides permitted to treat honey bees in a domestic setting are strictly limited, ethically questionable, and some pest controllers refuse to deploy them.

Short of advising us to stuff the fireplaces they’d been flying in through, and spend hundreds hiring a cherry picker to send someone up to the roof to physically extract them (with no guarantee of success) there was little he could do, the pest control man apologised, letting us know, for what it was worth, that we are far from alone.

This month beekeepers reported an increase in honeybee swarms – which happen when the old queen departs the hive with half the bees to set up a new home – caused by the sudden change in weather after a long, cold spring.

Usually, this split happens in a “staggered manner,” explains Matthew Richardson, president of the Scottish Beekeepers’ Association, but because of the delay in decent weather “the bees have been queuing up waiting to swarm and they’re all going at once.”

For many, the image might gladden the heart. Chris’s eyes certainly softened when I disclosed the identity of our uninvited guests and our 12-year-old daughter Rosie was delighted: “They’re an endangered species!”

But are they? In recent years, wildlife campaigners have made huge efforts to raise awareness of the importance of bees, of which there are around 270 species in the UK, including 24 species of bumble bees and hundreds of wild solitary bees that nest alone in cavities or underground.

Many are in decline – we have already lost around 13 species, including the short-haired bumblebee, last recorded in 1956, and the great yellow bumblebee in 1974. Another 35 species are currently at risk, with the use of pesticides in farming and destruction of pollen and nectar to feed off largely to blame – the UK has lost 97 per cent of its wildflower meadows since the 1930s.

Concern around honey bees, however, seems to stem from 2007, when an unexplained condition called colony collapse disorder (CCD), in which worker bees in a honey bee colony disappear, was officially recognised. Colony losses were reported in America and Europe and the potential impact on agriculture – according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the global value of global crops pollinated by honey bees in 2005 was estimated at over £150bn – was huge.

Within a decade, the threat of CCD seemingly passed, but our passion for honey bees continued, often in cities where beekeeping has become a fashionable “green” hobby. In 2021 UK Google searches for “urban beekeeping” jumped 21 per cent in a year. Celebrities who keep bees, meanwhile, include David Beckham and Jeremy Clarkson and last month a picture of the Princess of Wales wearing a beekeeper’s suit while tending to a hive in her Norfolk estate was released to mark World Bee Day.

Yet honey bees, the only species that makes honey, are not at risk – and, experts warn, our obsession with breeding them could be detrimental to bee species that are.

“There’s definitely a popular misconception around bees,” says Andrew Whitehouse of insect conservation charity Buglife, who says honey bees are “not endangered, they’re essentially livestock” and believes misunderstandings began when charities such as his own started to raise awareness of the importance of all pollinating insects around 20 years ago: “Perhaps the conservation organisations didn’t explain things properly and well-meaning people reached for the solution which was to increase the number of honey bees.”

At the same time as charities were starting to promote the importance of “wild pollinators,” he adds, CCD was becoming widely known: “I think the two issues were conflated a bit.”

Because honey bees are good at collecting pollen and returning it straight to their hives, they are less efficient at pollinating some plants than wild bees, with whom they compete for pollen.  And honey bee hives are bigger than most……

To read the complete article go to;

Honey bees aren’t an endangered species; they’re causing chaos (telegraph.co.uk)

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Honey bees aren’t an endangered species; they’re causing chaos (telegraph.co.uk)

BRIAN RAMOS

With summer just around the corner, optimal temperature for the bees is about 95 degrees, any hotter and the bees will begin to exhibit stress have difficultly of surviving.

By Rhiannon Saegert 

Beekeeper Dave Sharpless went to check on one of his beehives during this June 2019 day in Henderson only to find empty, melted hives.

The days of triple-degree heat during the summer months in Southern Nevada are extreme enough to drive some bee colonies from their hives, leaving behind a melted, sticky mess, he said.

Fall and winter are typically the most precarious time for hives, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, but Sharpless said comparably milder winters in the region are easier for them to get through. The real danger is summer heat even if bees have plenty of water and food.

“We lose more hives in the summer, it’s so extreme,” Sharpless said.

Sharpless has been keeping bees for 10 years and running the bee removal company LV Bees for six years. Instead of exterminating bees, he and partner Destry Myers move hives from customers’ properties to wooden structures in one of several Henderson fields, where he cares for them.

The incident four years ago was the first time they noticed the empty hives.

Sharpless began narrowing down what had caused them to flee. Colony Collapse Disorder wasn’t to blame, because instead of leaving the queen and a handful of nurse bees the colonies had completely abandoned their hive.

If pesticides or illness were the cause, dead bees would have been left behind.

“For most of those hives, even in full sun, 112 degrees is not a problem,” Sharpless said. “When it gets to be 117, 118, that’s when they say, ‘Nah, we can’t handle it.’ The honey starts to drip down on them and they say ‘Forget it, we’re out of here.’”

The following summer, Sharpless provided a closer water source that should have met their cooling and drinking needs and laid down bee-safe fire ant traps, but the exact same thing happened.

It only stopped in 2021, when he topped all of his boxes with 1-inch slabs of insulation foam, cutting down the heat and providing some extra shade.

To make matters stranger, it only happened to his hives in Southern Nevada.

“I have hives out in Arizona, out in the open like this, that don’t need the panels,” he said. “You’d think Northern Arizona gets just as hot as here. I have land in Moapa, and I don’t cover those either.”

Bees aren’t unequipped to deal with heat. In summer, they regulate the temperature inside their hives by collecting water, spreading droplets throughout the hive and fanning them with their wings to air condition the structures, he said.

Allen Gibbs, a life sciences professor and insect physiology expert at UNLV, said desert bee varieties should know how to weather the hottest temperatures. Some fly around with body temperatures of more than 120 degrees, he said.

“For the native bees, these are conditions they’re used to,” Gibbs said. “It’s kind of warm here for honeybees, but (native ones) do OK.”

He said the decades-long drought plaguing the area is a bigger problem for Southern Nevada bees than the heat itself.

“The hotter it gets, the faster they lose water,” he said. “That’s true for any insect.”

For Sharpless, business picks up fast in March and stays busy until the end of June. April and May are the busiest because colonies are growing their numbers and new swarms are splitting off to start their own colonies.

“I get calls two times a day from people like that. ‘I’ve got them under my composting!’ ‘I’ve got them under my shed!’ ‘I’ve got them in my roof,’” Sharpless said. “I’m like yeah, you’re not the only one. We’re booked.”

Sharpless said wild bees typically have a sense for where to build their hives to escape the heat, even in early spring. They’ll seek shade and enclosed spaces like irrigation valve boxes and any gaps inside unsuspecting Nevadans’ walls.

One recent customer, a woman who’d never encountered a hive in her 13 years in Las Vegas, realized a colony had made a home not only on, but in, the decking under her balcony, he said.

Their queen found her way into the interior wall through a hole left over from a speaker installation and the whole colony followed, making themselves cozy in the shaded, enclosed, insulated space.

Sharpless and Myers captured the colony and moved them to a box in the Henderson field.

Las Vegas isn’t the lone area of bee meltdowns as the earth’s temperature continues to rise.

In Australia, homeowners found honey leaking out of her wall and pooling onto the floor, according to 2020 report from ABC Radio in Perth. The homeowners found a melting hive weighing about 220 pounds inside an enclosed, unused chimney.

A Canadian bee researcher also in 2020 raised the alarm after discovering huge numbers of drones, or male honey bees, died of shock from heat stress.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Summer heat a buzzkill for Southern Nevada’s bees – Las Vegas Sun Newspaper

Ingredients
□ ½ cup butter (softened)
□ ⅔ cup honey
□ 2 eggs
□ 1 tablespoon lemon juice
□ ¼ teaspoon salt
□ Zest from half a lemon
□ ¾ cup flour
□ ¾ cup raspberries (or mixed berry blend,
which is what I used)

Glaze Ingredients
□ ¾ to 1 cup powdered sugar
□ 1 teaspoon raspberry jam
□ 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions
Step 1
Preheat oven to 350°F.

Step 2
Prepare an 8×8 square pan by spraying it with non-stick spray (or lining it with parchment paper).

Step 3
In a large bowl, combine butter, eggs, honey, lemon juice, salt and zest. Mix by hand or hand mixer.

Step 4
Add flour and mix until just combined.

Step 5
Add fresh raspberries (or mixed berries) and stir in by hand.

Step 6
Pour into prepared pan and spread into an even layer.

Step 7
Bake for around 25 minutes or until edges are brown and the middle is set. Do not over bake! You want the texture to be like a brownie.

Step 8
Let it cool.

Step 9
While the bars are cooling, combine the glaze ingredients and whisk together.

Step 10
Pour it over the cooled bars and spread out into an even layer on the top. Let the glaze set for at least 20 minutes.

Step 11
Cut into squares and serve.

Store at room temperature or in the refrigerator in an air tight container. Enjoy!

Intellectual Property Office rules that New Zealand beekeepers’ attempt to stop Australian producers using the name did not meet necessary requirements

Tess McClure in Auckland

New Zealand honey producers have lost their latest battle to trademark mānuka honey, the latest blow in a years-long fight to stop Australian beekeepers using the lucrative name.

The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand ruled on Monday that New Zealand mānuka beekeepers’ attempt for a trademark did not meet necessary requirements, and the term mānuka was descriptive.

Mānuka refers to a white flowered tree that grows in both New Zealand and Australia – although it is more widely known as “tea tree” in Australia. The bees that browse its tiny pale blooms produce a kind of honey known for antibacterial and supposed health properties – and which fetches a significant price markup on the international market as a result.

At the highest concentrations, some New Zealand batches have fetched up to NZ$2,000 to $5,000 for a 250g jar at luxury stores overseas. The lucrative nature of the product has been responsible for outbreaks of crime in New Zealand, with fierce competition over access to mānuka forests spurring mass poisonings of bees, thefts, vandalism and beatings.

For more than a decade, however, the two countries have been at loggerheads over the use of the mānuka name – a Māori word, which New Zealand argues is an indigenous treasure, uniquely associated with its own honey production. Pita Tipene, Chair of the Manuka Charitable Trust, said the decision was “disappointing in so many ways”. He said the trust would pause to regroup, before continuing its battle.

“If anything, it has made us more determined to protect what is ours on behalf of all New Zealanders and consumers who value authenticity,” he said.

“Our role as kaitiaki [guardians] to protect the mana [dignity] and value of our taonga [treasured] species, including mānuka on behalf of all New Zealanders is not contestable.”

Australian industry players welcomed the decision as a “commonsense outcome” and issued a press release saying they had plans to grow international sales in response to rising demand.

Australian Manuka Honey Association chairman Ben McKee said he was “delighted” by the ruling.

“Our product has a long history of being recognised as manuka honey, it is produced like the NZ product is, and it also offers the sought-after antimicrobial properties that consumers around the world value so highly,” he said.

New Zealand producers first tried to trademark the term in 2015.

The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand called the fight “a trans-Tasman tussle of extraordinary proportions” and said in its ruling that it was “one of the most complex and long-running proceedings to have come before the Intellectual Property Office”. The latest decision follows a similar 2021 ruling from the UK to not grant trademark status.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: New Zealand loses fight with Australia over mānuka honey trademark | New Zealand | The Guardian

Released March 17, 2023, by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), Agricultural Statistics Board, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

United States Honey Production Down One Percent in 2022
United States honey production in 2022 totaled 125 million pounds, down one percent from 2021. There were 2.67 million colonies producing honey in 2022, down one percent from 2021. Yield per colony averaged 47.0 pounds, unchanged from 2021. Colonies which produced honey in more than one state were counted in each state where the honey was produced. Therefore, the United States level yield per colony may be understated, but total production would not be impacted. Colonies were not included if honey was not harvested. Producer honey stocks were 23.3 million pounds on December 15, 2022, down one percent from a year earlier. Stocks held by producers exclude those held under the commodity loan program, which are entered separately.

Honey Prices Up 12 Percent in 2022
United States honey prices increased 12 percent during 2022 to $2.96 per pound, compared to $2.65 per pound in 2021. United States and state level prices reflect the portions of honey sold through cooperatives, private and retail channels. Prices for each color class are derived by weighing the quantities sold for each marketing channel. Prices for the 2021 crop reflect honey sold in 2021 and 2022. Some 2021 crop honey was sold in 2022, which caused some revisions to the 2021 crop prices.

Price Paid for Queens, Packages, Nucs was 22 Dollars in 2022
The average prices paid in 2022 for honey bee queens, packages and nucs were $22, $98 and $129, respectively. Pollination income for 2022 was $241 million, down 11 percent from 2021. Other income from honey bees in 2022 was $55.2 million, down 31 percent from 2021.

Released August 1, 2022, by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), Agricultural Statistics Board, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

January 1, 2021 – Some History
Honey Bee Colonies Down One Percent for Operations with Five or More colonies
Honey bee colonies for operations with five or more colonies in the United States on January 1, 2022 totaled 2.88 million colonies, down one percent from January 1, 2021. The number of colonies in the United States on April 1, 2022, was 2.92 million colonies. During 2021, honey bee colonies on January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1 were 2.90 million, 2.83 million, 3.17 million and 3.09 million colonies, respectively.

Honey bee colonies lost for operations with five or more colonies from January through March 2022, was 331,780 colonies, or 12 percent. The number of colonies lost during the quarter of April through June 2022, was 282,630 colonies, or 10 percent. During the quarter of January through March 2021, colonies lost totaled 464,640 colonies, or 16 percent, the highest number lost of any quarter surveyed in 2021. The quarter surveyed in 2021 with the lowest number of colonies lost was July through September, with 295,660 colonies lost, or nine percent.

Honey bee colonies added for operations with five or more colonies from January through March 2022 was 367,890 colonies. The number of colonies added during the quarter of April through June 2022 was 589,630. During the quarter of April through June 2021, the number of colonies added were 665,730 colonies, the highest number of honey bee colonies added for any quarter surveyed in 2021. The quarter of October through December 2021 added 93,940 colonies, the least number of honey bee colonies added for any quarter surveyed in 2021.

Honey bee colonies renovated for operations with five or more colonies from January through March 2022 was 187,180 colonies, or seven percent. During the quarter of April through June 2022, the number of colonies renovated were 492,410 colonies, or 17 percent. The quarter surveyed in 2021 with the highest number of colonies renovated was April through June 2021 with 475,750 colonies renovated, or 17 percent. The quarter surveyed in 2021 with the lowest number of colonies renovated was October through December 2021, with 146,520, or five percent. Renovated colonies are those that were requeened or received new honey bees through a nucleus (nuc) colony or package.

Varroa Mites Top Colony Stressor for Operations with Five or More Colonies
Varroa mites were the number one stressor for operations with five or more colonies during all quarters surveyed in 2021. The period with the highest percentage of colonies reported to be affected by varroa mites was April through June 2021 at 50.7 percent. The percent of colonies reported to be affected by varroa mites during January through March 2022 and April through June 2022 are 33.7 percent and 45.2 percent, respectively.

Colonies Lost with Colony Collapse Disorder Symptoms Up 12 Percent for Operations with Five or More colonies
Honey bee colonies lost with Colony Collapse Disorder symptoms on operations with five or more colonies was 86,070 colonies from January through March 2022. This represents a 12 percent increase from the same quarter in 2021.

If you want to explore USDA’s survey results further, start here:
Access to NASS Reports are available for your convenience, you may access NASS reports and products the following ways:

• • All reports are available electronically, at no cost, on the NASS website: www.nass.usda.gov.
  • Both national and state specific reports are available via a free e-mail subscription. To set-up this free subscription, visit www.nass.usda.gov and click on “National” or “State” in upper right corner, above the “search” box to create an account and select the reports you would like to receive.
  • Cornell’s Mann Library has launched a new website housing NASS’s and other agency’s archived reports. The new website: https://usda.library.cornell.edu. All email subscriptions containing reports will be sent from the new website, https://usda.library.cornell.edu. To continue receiving the reports via e-mail, you will have to go to the new website, create a new account and re-subscribe to the reports. If you need instructions to set up an account or subscribe, they are located at: https://usda.library.cornell.edu/help. You should whitelist notifications@usdaesmis.library.cornell.edu in your email client to avoid the emails going into spam/junk folders.

Per Capita Consumption, 2022
We calculate this figure each year using data from USDA ERS, NASS, ERS, FARM SERVICE and the U.S. Census Bureau. From these sources we determine how much honey entered the system, how much honey left the system, how much was used, how much wasn’t used and the population on July 1, 2022. These figures include U.S. production, U.S. exports, honey put under and taken out of the loan program and honey remaining in storage, plus how much was imported from off shore. Essentially, it’s a measure of honey in minus honey out. The resultant figure, divided by how many people were here on that particular date results in how much honey was consumed by each and every individual in the U.S. last year. And yes, you are correct, not every person eats honey, but by producing this figure on an annual basis, we are able to compare apples to apples each year in honey consumption.

The chart compares these figures for the previous 13 years. We’ve included the USDA’s price of all honey for comparison too.

Honey Into the U.S., 2022
U.S. beekeepers with more than five colonies in 2022 produced, according to USDA, 125.3 million pounds of honey. The Honey Board calculates that an additional eight million pounds or so are produced by those with fewer than five colonies for a total production of 133.3 million pounds. Additional honey in figures include 23.3 million pounds taken out of warehouses from last year, two million pounds taken out from last year’s loan program and a whopping 260.9 million pounds imported for a rough total of 419.5 million pounds of honey in, during 2022. This honey sold, on average, wholesale, retail and specialty honey for $2.96/pound, according to USDA figures. Commercial beekeepers in the U.S. will tell you to make a living, this price should be about the same price as diesel fuel. Take a look next time you are at the gas station.

Honey Out of U.S. Stock, 2022
For the honey out figure, we exported nearly 12.3 million pounds to other countries, have nearly 23.3 million pounds still sitting in warehouses and put just under two million under loan, for a total of about 38 million pounds of honey produced in 2022 that were moved out of the U.S. figures for 2022.

The July 1, 2022 population was right at 333.3 million people in the U.S. So, to calculate per capita consumption, subtract honey out (put under loan, exported or still in warehouses) from honey in (honey produced this year, left over from last or imported) and divide by 333.3 million, for a total of 382 million pounds consumed in the U.S. last year. Divide this by 333 million people which gives you about 1.2 pounds of honey per person consumed by people in the U.S. during 2022, the lowest since 2012.

The top 10 producing states produced a total of $8,844,300 with a total of 1.879 million colonies. This comes to 70.4% of the U.S. colonies, and 70.6% of total dollar value.
The top three producing states had a total of 982,00 colonies, producing a total of $51,111,000. This comes to 36.8% of all colony production in the U.S. in 2022, producing 57.8% of total production dollars. Moreover, these three states produced 36.8% of all the colonies in the U.S. in 2022.

Top 10 Producing States
The places that yield the most honey every year are pretty much determined by the climate, the soil, agriculture and politics. The crops grown, or not grown in a region certainly play a role in what can be found relative to nectar, pesticides and regulations relative to how many colonies you can put on any given acre, that won’t starve after a couple of months. Of course, government conservation programs lend a hand here too.

We’ve been curious about this for the last eight years or so, just because it’s interesting to see what changes, and what doesn’t. The Dakotas, California, Montana, Florida, Minnesota, and Texas are almost always in the top eight, with the last two changing occasionally: New York, Louisiana, Georgia, Idaho, Michigan and perhaps a few others round out these performers.

This year provided few surprises in who is on the list, and the totals for the top 10 this year were essentially where they always are relative to the number of colonies counted in these states and the amount of honey produced. Again, these states produced 70% of all of the honey produced in the U.S., and had 70% of all the colonies in the U.S. sitting somewhere within their borders. It’s pretty clear that what happens in these few states is going to determine the U.S. crop.

But, just because we can, this year we looked at the contributions of the top three states, for almost every year, the Dakotas and Texas. Combined, they held on to 52.3% of the colonies used last year and produced just over 40% of all the honey U.S. beekeepers made last year. This means, of course, that 52% of the colonies, and 60% of the U.S. honey crop is spread out over the remaining 47 states. You can see this comes to just under 1%/state. That sort of puts us in our place, doesn’t it? This extreme unbalanced situation commands notice, then, as to what will happen when climate change erodes, or doesn’t, weather patterns in these three states including rainfall, Summer and Winter temperatures, farming practices and conservation practices.

Already, drought in the western third of the U.S. is having an effect, not only on the bees, but their forage and the crops they pollinate as well. Like it or not, we are at the mercy of big weather – call it climate change or whatever – it’s dry out there!

Released January 11, 2023, by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), Agricultural Statistics Board, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Pollination Costs and Income, 2022
Cost Per Colony to Pollinate Almond Up 13 Percent from 2017
In Regions 6 & 7, the average cost per colony for almonds increased 13 percent from 171 dollars per colony in 2017 to 194 dollars per colony in 2022. The average price per acre increased from 272 dollars per acre to 336 dollars per acre during that period. The total value of pollination for almonds increased 44 percent. Almonds were the highest valued crop in that region. The total value of all pollination in Regions 6 & 7 for 2022 was 387 million dollars, up 42 percent from 2017.

Blueberries had the highest total value of pollination of crops reported in Region 1 in 2022. The price per colony for blueberries increased 27 percent to 98.4 dollars per colony in 2022. The price per acre increased 42 percent to 179 dollars per acre. The total value of pollination for blueberries in Region 1 for 2022 was 8.56 million dollars. The total value for pollination of all crops in Region 1 for 2022 was 21.9 million dollars, up 33 percent from 2017.

Blueberries had the highest total value of pollination of crops reported in Region 2 in 2022. The price per colony for blueberries increased 40 percent to 78.3 dollars per colony in 2022. The price per acre increased 63 percent to 139 dollars per acre. The total value of pollination for blueberries in Region 2 for 2022 was 3.60 million dollars. The total value of pollination of all crops in Region 2 for 2022 was 6.60 million dollars, up 10 percent from 2017.

Watermelons had the highest total value of pollination of crops reported in Region 3 in 2022. The price per colony for watermelons increased 38 percent to 76.9 dollars per colony in 2022. The price per acre increased 57 percent to 100 dollars per acre. The total value of pollination for watermelons in Region 3 for 2022 was 1.85 million dollars. The total value of pollination of all crops in Region 3 for 2022 was 7.39 million dollars, up eight percent from 2017.

Apples had the highest total value of pollination of crops reported in Region 4 in 2022. The price per colony for apples increased three percent to 51.7 dollars per colony in 2022. The price per acre decreased slightly to 41.0 dollars per acre. The total value of pollination for apples in Region 4 for 2022 was 114 thousand dollars. The total value of pollination of all crops in Region 4 for 2022 was 628 thousand dollars, down 27 percent from 2017.

Apples had the highest total value of pollination of crops reported in Region 5 in 2022. The price per colony for apples increased 12 percent to 58.3 dollars per colony in 2022. The price per acre increased 36 percent to 62.8 dollars per acre. The total value of pollination for apples in Region 5 for 2022 was 6.59 million dollars. The total value of pollination of all crops in Region 5 for 2022 was 17.5 million dollars, up four percent from 2017.

Lots of colony losses once again in 2023. There are three words I want you to remember: Varroa, Varroa, Varroa. And disappointingly, the majority of the beekeeping industry is still not using the Honey Bee Health Coalition vetted, accurate and usable Tools for Varroa Management Guide.

Varroa mites and the Varroa Virus legacy will KILL your honey bees.

In order to be a good manager of your honey bee colonies and reduce/stop losses from Varroa/Virus you, the beekeeper, need to be on your ‘game’ and be a Beekeeper not a Bee-haver.

The Honey Bee Health Coalition (HBHC) has the developed the key educational outreach tool for Varroa control titled, Tools for Varroa Management, A Guide to Effective Varroa Sampling & Control. The latest edition can be found at https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/HBHC-Guide_Varroa-Mgmt_8thEd-081622.pdf. It is based on Federal and State registered, legally approved products which require beekeepers to ALWAYS following label directions. This is all you really need to successfully manage for Varroa control in your colonies. To get you started, we will share some overview of what you need to think about and actually do.

In the Tools Guide each product will have the following individual points in a table: Name, Active Ingredient, Formulation, Route of Exposure, Treatment Time/Use Frequency, Time of Year, Registrant-reported Effectiveness, Conditions for Use, Restrictions , Advantages, Disadvantages, Considerations and a link to a Use Video.

Here we are only going to share Name, Active Ingredient and Conditions for Use, to get you started.

INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT (IPM) is a set of proactive, control methods that offer beekeepers the best “whole systems approach” to controlling varroa. See Tools Guide, pages 6-12.

ESSENTIAL OILS
Tools Guide pages 19-20

Name – Apiguard and Thymovar
Active Ingredient – Thymol
Conditions of Use – Temperature range restrictions: Apiguard – above 59°F and below 105°F (15°C to 40°C), Thymovar: above 59°F and below 85°F (15°C to 30°C).

Name – ApiLife Var
Active Ingredients – Thymol (74.09%), Oil of Eucalyptus (16%), Menthol (3.73%) = camphor ( essential oil)
Conditions of Use – Divide wafer into four pieces and place each piece in a corner of the hive on the top bars. Use between 65°F and 95°F (18°C to 35°C). Ineffective below 45°F (8°C).

NON-CHEMICAL / CULTURAL CONTROLS
Tools Guide pages 26-30

Name – Screen Bottom Board
Conditions for Use – Replace hive bottom; leave space below for trash (‘garbage pit’).

Name – Sanitation (bee biosecurity) comb management
Conditions for Use – Possible negative effect on bee population if five or more combs are moved at one time.

Name – Drone Brood Removal (Drone Trapping Varroa)
Conditions of Use – Only applicable during population increase and peak population when colonies are actively rearing drones.

Name – Brood Interruption
Conditions of Use – Need a queen or queen cell for each split or division created.

Name – Requeening (Ideally with varroa resistant stock)
Conditions of Use – Works best with proper queen introduction methods.

SYNTHETIC CHEMICALS
Tools Guide pages 16-18

Name – Apivar
Active Ingredient – Amitraz (formadine acaricide/insecticide)
Conditions for Use – Place one Apivar strip per five frames of bees. Place strips near cluster or if brood is present, in the center of the brood nest. Only use Apivar in brood boxes where honey for human consumption is NOT being produced.

Name – Apistan
Active Ingredient – Tau-fluvalinate (pyrethroid ester acaracide/insecticide)
Conditions for Use – Temperatures must be above 50°F (10°C). Do not use during nectar flow.

Name – Checkmite
Active Ingredient – Coumaphos (organothiophosphate acaracide/insecticide)
Conditions for Use – Wait two weeks after use before supering.

ACIDS
Tools Guide pages 21-25

Name – Mite-Away Quick Strips
Active Ingredient – Formic Acid (organic acid)
Conditions of Use – Full dose (two strips for seven days) or single strip (seven-day interval then single new strip for an additional seven days) per single or double brood chamber of standard Langstroth equipment.

Name – Formic Pro
Active Ingredient – Formic acid (organic acid)
Conditions of Use – Both treatment options can be applied per single or double brood chamber of standard Langstroth equipment or equivalent hive or equivalent hive with a cluster covering a minimum of six frames. There should be a strip touching each top bar containing brood. Use when outside day temperature is 50°F to 85°F (10°C to 29.5°C)

Name – 65% formic acid
Active Ingredient – Formic acid 65%
Conditions of Use – Use when outside temperatures are between 50°F to 86°F (10°C to 30°C) and leave hive entrances fully open

Name – Oxalic Acid / Api-Bioxal
Active Ingredient – Oxalic acid dihydrate (organic acid)
Conditions of Use – Mix 35 grams (approximately 2.3 tablespoons) of oxalic acid into one liter of 1:1 sugar syrup. With a syringe trickle five milliliters of this solution directly onto the bee in each occupied bee space in each brood box; Maximum 50ml per colony of oxalic acid in sugar syrup; fumigation of two grams per hive in Canada and one gram per hive box in the U.S.; follow label and vaporizer directions.

Name – HopGuard 3
Active Ingredient – Potassium salt (16%) of hops beta acids (organic acid)
Conditions of Use – Corrosive—use appropriate clothing and eye protection. Might stain clothing and gloves.

Ingredients
□ 2 cups (400g) active and bubbly natural yeast starter
□ 2½ cups (580g) warm water
□ ¾ cup (255g) honey
□ 1 egg, beaten
□ 1 tbsp (20g) salt
□ ⅓ cup (68g) avocado or coconut oil
□ 8-11 cups flour (unbleached all-purpose, bread flour or whole wheat flour is suggested)

Directions
Step 1
In a mixer or large bowl, combine the natural yeast, water, honey, salt, egg and oil.

Step 2
Add the flour, one cup at a time, mixing and kneading as it is added.

Step 3
Be careful not to add too much flour. When the dough starts to pull away from the bowl and there are places the flour is not mixed entirely, let the dough rest for 10-20 minutes.

Step 4
After the rest, continue to add flour. If you are using a Bosch mixer, the dough will become lopsided – at that point, you know you’ve added enough flour. You want the dough to be tacky, not sticky.

Step 5
Knead the dough for 10 minutes.

Step 6
Cover the dough with a clean dish towel or with the lid to the mixer. Allow to rise until doubled in size (approximately six hours). You can also let it rise longer if you’re wanting a more fermented taste or to reduce the gluten. I often let it rise overnight for 10 hours or so on the countertop. To speed up the rise, put it in the oven (off) with the oven light on.

Step 7
When the dough has doubled in size, empty onto a lightly oiled surface and divide into three to four equal portions. With practice, you will learn what quantity of dough works best for the size of your bread loaf pans. Form the dough into loaves and put each loaf into a greased or parchment lined bread pan.

Step 8
Cover again and let loaves rise until doubled. Anywhere from three to five hours.

Step 9
Once doubled, bake at 400 degrees for 28 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches 180 degrees.

Step 10
When the loaves come out of the oven, immediately remove the loaves from the pans and set on a cooling rack to prevent condensation. Add butter to the tops if desired.

Step 11
Let bread cool before slicing.

Step 12
Enjoy!

Don’t get rid of that last inch of solidified honey in the jar. Do this instead.

BY ANNA HEZEL

When archaeologists excavated King Tut’s tomb in 1922, they found (and allegedly tasted) a jar of honey that had survived the past several millennia intact. I think of this every time I come across a jar of honey in my kitchen that I helped harvest a full four years ago from bee hives my Brooklyn community garden keeps on the roof of my apartment building.

Although it’s a romantic idea to preserve the smells and tastes of Prospect Park’s flora from summer 2019 for posterity, I’m not keeping it around for sentimental reasons. I just can’t, for the life of me, get the jar open. And since this is the only container in my entire pantry without an expiration date printed on it, I’ve decided to procrastinate figuring it out…indefinitely.

While the King Tut story is oft-repeated to demonstrate that honey lasts forever, I’ve always wondered how this could be true when I’ve watched so many half-eaten jars over the years crystallize and solidify to a point of unusability. I reached out to Bruce Shriver, the beekeeper at Gowanus Apiary; Amy Newsome, a gardener, beekeeper, and author of Honey; and the folks behind Brooklyn-based Mike’s Hot Honey to get some practical advice on how to keep this natural sweetener at its free-flowing, floral best.

Does honey go bad?

At its core honey is essentially a very concentrated sugar solution, and because it has such a low water content (about 18%), it’s very resistant to fermentation or spoilage. It’s also full of organic acids from the nectar it’s made from, which give the honey an average pH of 3.4 to 6.1. This acidic quality makes it very difficult for microbes to survive in that jar or squeeze bottle.

“Honey lasts forever as long as it’s stored in an airtight container, such as a jar with a cap,” explains Shriver. The problems arise when the honey is exposed to air and humidity.  “Honey will absorb moisture from the air if left open, which can cause it to ferment.”

When the moisture level changes, and the fermentation process begins, those sugars can be converted to alcohol. Mead is made by diluting honey with lots of water, and mixing it with yeast to kickstart that fermentation process. But if your jar is sealed and sheltered from extra humidity, it will last indefinitely. And, according to the USDA, even if you notice it getting cloudy or taking on a crystallized texture, the honey is still safe to eat.

Why does honey crystallize and turn solid sometimes?

“When bees make honey, they are creating a ‘supersaturated solution,’ which in this case means the natural sugars (mainly glucose and fructose—from the harvested flower nectar) are dissolved in a tiny amount of water, and the honey stays liquid but very temperamentally so,” explains Newsome. “The sugars start to crystallize over time.”

“All honey will crystallize over time,” agrees Shriver. “Commercially processed honey tends to crystalize more slowly than raw honey. That’s because all of the particles (mostly pollen grains) have been filtered under high pressure and heat. This process not only removes the pollen but also destroys many of the naturally occurring yeasts, enzymes, flavonoids, polyphenols and microbial compounds.”

The way honey solidifies is also partially decided by the bees themselves, when they choose which blossoms to land on.

“Each flower species has a different proportion of glucose to fructose in its nectar, and glucose crystallizes more readily than fructose,” Newsome explains. “This is why you can buy naturally runny honeys, like acacia, which has a higher fructose ratio.”

What can you do to prevent or fix it?

Newsome tells me that she saw an Instagram post recently that made her want to cry, suggesting that you can prevent crystals from forming by stirring some corn syrup into your honey. A section of her book, called “Crystallization is not the enemy,” suggests embracing the thicker, grainy texture and spreading it on crumpets or toast.

“I know it can be a pain,” she says, of the sweet but finicky syrup, “but really we should learn to love it and work with it, as a quirk of the natural world, and marvel that the bees have managed to make something so mercurial and delicious.”

When I reached out to the folks at Mike’s Hot Honey with a few questions on the subject, they sent me an informational pamphlet on the subject (presumably they get this question a lot). The pamphlet recommends keeping honey below 50° Fahrenheit for long-term storage, since this cooler temperature prevents crystallization. This will slow down how easily the honey flows, so they also recommend allowing it to warm back up to room temperature before using. If you’re using your honey frequently, they recommend keeping it between 70° and 80° Fahrenheit—a range that will delay crystallization.

But if you don’t have the luxury of tomb-like, cold storage conditions, you can always bring your solidified honey back to life with a little heat. Just set the jar or squeeze bottle in a bowl of warm water (but avoid water over 95° Fahrenheit, which can degrade some of the flavonoids, according to Shriver) until it starts flowing again.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Why Does Honey Crystallize? (And How to Decrystallize It Naturally) | Epicurious

NataliaZa/Shutterstock

By Lorien Crow

When you think of honey, you may picture little bear-shaped plastic bottles filled with dark golden liquid, ready to be squeezed into a hot cup of tea or drizzled onto a peanut butter sandwich. But before you toss that plastic honey bear into your grocery cart, you might want to consider some alternatives.

The processed honey available on most grocery store shelves has been heated and stripped of some of its health benefits. Raw honey, on the other hand, is pure and unfiltered, retaining beneficial vitamins and minerals. And it’s every bit as sweet and scrumptious as its processed counterpart (maybe even more so).

The good news doesn’t stop there. When bees create honey in their hives, the beeswax forms a waxy tray filled with tiny, hexagonal nooks and crannies, called honeycomb. Honeycomb has a delicate, wafer-like texture, is completely safe to eat, and comes packed with natural health benefits.

If you’re put off by the thought of eating honey straight from the hive, don’t be — Winnie the Pooh knew what he was doing. Honeycomb and raw honey contain antimicrobial properties due to their high Ph levels & certain enzymes created by honeybees. This makes it nearly impossible for bacteria to survive in raw honey, so long as it’s stored properly. (Just ask the archaeologists who discovered thousand-year old honey pots in Egyptian tombs, preserved so well that they’re still edible.) If you don’t have an Egyptian tomb handy, don’t worry; the pantry (or any cool, dry place) will do just fine.

Honey and honeycomb are also packed with antioxidants and amino acids and make a great moisturizer or a soothing cough suppressant when added to tea — or just eaten by the spoonful. Beeswax may even help to lower “bad” LDL cholesterol, and boost immunity. Honeycomb and raw honey may also be a good sugar substitute for those with diabetes: while it does contain fructose and glucose, its sweetness is concentrated, meaning a little honey can stand in for a lot of sugar.

There are a couple of cautions to consider, however. Healthline recommends that pregnant women, children under age 12, and those who are allergic to pollen, use caution when consuming honeycomb; it’s best to start with small amounts.

Honeycomb can be enjoyed in many different ways, but it goes especially well with cheese. The Asheville Bee Charmer, a shop and honey-tasting bar in Asheville, North Carolina, recommends pairing honeycomb with “hard, salty cheeses” like Pecorino or Manchego. Honeycomb also makes a visually stunning centerpiece on a charcuterie board, complementing any array of fruits and nuts. It’s great on toast, or dipped in tea or hot chocolate. You can use raw honey in place of sugar in coffee or lemonade or add a bit of texture to yogurt with a piece of honeycomb. You can even chew the beeswax like bubble gum.

Don’t worry if your honey or honeycomb crystallizes; that just means it’s pure, raw honey. Putting the jar in a hot water bath is an easy, quick way to de-crystallize honey. You can also try adding two teaspoons of light corn syrup for every cup of honey to prevent it from happening in the first place.

However you choose to try it, honeycomb is a fun, healthy snack with plenty of sweet benefits.

Read More: https://www.thedailymeal.com/1259474/honeycomb-safe-eat-edible/

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: https://www.thedailymeal.com/1259474/honeycomb-safe-eat-edible/

The Texas Legislature wants to crack down on who can claim their honey is made in Texas. Beekeepers say the proposed legislation is too stiff and doesn’t take into account real-world production issues.

BY JAYME LOZANO-CARVER

State lawmakers are debating a bill that would forbid Texas beekeepers from labeling their product as made in Texas if it contains a single drop of honey from another state. Beekeepers say the legislation doesn’t take into consideration real-world production problems. Credit: Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal-USA TODAY via REUTERS

State lawmakers are moving forward with a bill that could potentially land Texas honey producers in jail for mislabeling their products, creating a buzz in the beekeeping community.

House Bill 590, authored by Rep. Ernest Bailes, R-Shepherd, states that a product cannot be labeled as “Texas honey” unless the product consists “exclusively” of honey produced from apiaries in the state.

While the concept of the bill seems simple, Texas beekeepers say it could sting producers and their livelihood. According to Texas A&M’s AgriLife agency, Texas contributed 8.9 million pounds of honey — worth $17 million — to the national honey production.

“There’s a lot of things out there we need to address in labeling honey; this one is just not quite where it needs to be,” said Dodie Stillman, president of the Texas Beekeepers Association.

Running one of Texas’ 157,000 honey-producing colonies can get complicated. Weather conditions could make it difficult to produce enough honey for a business, so some will create a Texas-heavy blend with honey from other states. Relabeling products can get expensive or even lead to a loss for some producers. Beekeepers on border territories can have nectar DNA that inevitably blends between the two states.

But even with all the room for error, HB 590 would effectively make mislabeling Texas honey products a class B misdemeanor and potentially send a producer to jail for up to 180 days.

In an effort to soften the legislation, Rep. Cecil Bell Jr., R-Magnolia, proposed an amendment that would allow honey producers to label their product “made in Texas” as long as it consisted of “predominantly” Texas honey.

“This bill is not a bad bill inherently, but I do think if we don’t pay attention to what’s going on, there may be some consequences,” Bell said during a recent debate on the House floor.

Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, spoke in support of Bell’s amendment, explaining how his constituents could also be affected because of how the bill is tailored.

“How many of our constituents do you think we should subject to …Texas prisons, who have done nothing more than make and sell honey?” Harrison asked.

Bell answered, “If we have one in jail, that’s more than we need to have in jail for producing Texas honey.”

The amendment ultimately failed.

The bill’s genesis came from a constituent in Bailes’ district. The state’s beekeepers association is neutral on the bill, an association spokesperson said.

“I think everybody agrees helping consumers know where their honey is from is a good idea,” said Leesa Hyder, the association’s legislative committee leader. “The question is, does this bill really do that?”

Hyder added there’s also a concern about how producers can prove their honey was made in the boundaries of the state.

Hyder said there was not time or opportunity for the association to address the problems with the bill — such as potential for consumer confusion, legal battle for producers and the uncertainty on whether this will even help make Texas honey more profitable. The association will remain neutral on the bill as it moves over to the Senate in coming weeks.

During the debate, Bailes compared it to his ranching business in defense of the bill.

“If we have a drought, and I have cattle grazing on grass, for grass-fed beef, and I start feeding them grain, it’s no longer grass-fed beef,” Bailes explained. “That’s as simple as it gets. We are better than simply saying it should be ‘predominantly’ and dilute ourselves for the almighty dollar.”

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Texas beekeepers face possible jail time under proposed legislation | The Texas Tribune

Ingredients
□ ⅔ cup nonfat, plain Greek yogurt
□ 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
□ 1 teaspoon honey
□ ¼ cup fresh raspberries or strawberries
□ 2 tablespoons dark chocolate chips, melted
□ 2 tablespoons spray whipped cream topping (optional)

Directions
Step 1
Stir the Greek yogurt, cocoa powder and honey in a bowl.

Step 2
Add the fresh berries of choice.

Step 3
Place the chocolate chips in a bowl and heat in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time until melted and smooth; stirring in between.

Step 4
Drizzle the chocolate over the raspberries.

Optional Step 5
Top with whipped cream if desired.

The team is working towards picking up chemical cues in honey to tell the botanical sources of the sweet treat

Grad Assistant Taylor Mac, left, and professor Cory Emal test different types of honey using a variety of methods including taste and aroma.

While Michigan is well-known as a leader in craft brewing, its status as a vanguard in the production of mead—made from fermented honey—is becoming more visible. And like fancy chefs who want to know the origins of every ingredient in their signature dishes, mead-makers are increasingly interested in knowing everything about the honey they use, right down to which plants the bees visited on their daily rounds. Enter EMU chemistry professor and amateur mead-maker Cory Emal, Ph.D. (Emal is also the coordinator of EMU’s Fermentation Science program.)

Leading a team of colleagues and students, Emal is developing a new way to analyze the unique chemical “fingerprint” of honey varieties. The goal of the research is a fast and robust test that will yield a detailed history and provenance of the sweet syrup.

Currently, it can be hard to verify claims on a label and there have been documented instances of honey fraud. A specific variety of honey can be adulterated with other varietals or even with corn or rice syrup. In one case, bees harvesting from the New Zealand mānuka plant made 1,700 tons of honey, but more than 10,000 tons of mānuka honey were sold.

Our five senses can identify honey to a certain point. In Emal’s sensory analysis class, students learn to interpret the unique tastes and aromas that distinguish one honey from another. For instance, meadowfoam honey has a distinct vanilla flavor, while buckwheat honey can be malty or minty. Varieties also range in color from pale yellow to deep molasses.

Brewers and chefs have to trust their senses and the honey labels for reassurance they are getting what they want, but most differences are subtle enough to confuse even the most discriminating palette. The best alternative is a microscopic analysis of pollen grains, a process Emal calls “expensive and labor intensive.”

In a new approach, Emal and his colleagues use nuclear magnetic resonance, or NMR, to pull out subtle chemical differences in honey. An NMR machine works like a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, but “instead of looking at somebody’s knee, we’re looking at chemical molecules,” explains associate professor of chemistry Gregg Wilmes, Ph.D. “It’s probably the most powerful tool that we have to figure out the structure of molecules, especially organic molecules.”

A number of EMU students have been involved in the project. Undergraduates Alia Frederick, Aubrey Martin, and Maggie McCullough came up with the best sample preparation method and ran the initial data collection on the NMR. Grad student Justin Norris dug through the dizzying spectral data and figured out a good way to process the data. Norris also came up with an organizational method to sort data and start building the spectral honey variety library.

“Every molecule is going to have its own distinct pattern,” says Wilmes. “What we are trying to do is use this to figure out the patterns in honey.”

The team ran five honey varietals through the NMR looking for distinct patterns of peaks in the readout. On first look, the results looked very similar to those for the sugar molecules. “Where we see the differences is when we really zoom in,” says Emal. “Here’s where we can start to see the minor compounds. These are the things that are going to be that signature for the individual types of honey.”

To see if these smaller peaks could tell the difference, Emal and Wilmes enlisted the help of biology lecturer Maria Goodrich, who ran the results through statistical analysis to pull out the parts that best represent a certain honey variety. They found that the five honeys tended to group together by variety. Their work is in the early stages, but so far there seems to be a distinctive chemical fingerprint that can separate one honey from another.

Eventually, they would like to build a library of the chemical traits of honey. As they build their catalog, they hope to be able to tell whether bees visited an orange grove in California, Florida, or Panama. “Even from season to season, because we don’t know what effects climate change is going to have over the years on honey traits,” Emal says. “We want to be able to build a big enough library of trusted samples, so that we have a better idea of the provenance of the honey.”

Visit the EMU Department of Chemistry website to learn more about program offerings and research projects.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: EMU researchers are chemically “fingerprinting” different varieties of honey – EMU Today (emich.edu)

Their results, reported recently in Scientific Reports, showed that organic and conventional management systems both increased winter survival by more than 180% compared to chemical-free management. Organic and conventional management also increased total honey production across three years by 118% and 102%, respectively. Organic and conventional management systems did not differ significantly in survival or honey production.

Beekeeper-collaborators and research volunteers collect data from honey bee hives as part of a study comparing different beekeeping management systems. Credit: Courtesy of Margarita López-Uribe. All Rights Reserved.

By Chuck Gill

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Honey bee colonies managed using organic methods were as healthy and productive as those managed in conventional systems, while avoiding the use of synthetic pesticides to control pests and pathogens inside the hive, according to newly published research led by Penn State entomologists.

The researchers said they believe that their study, which compared the performance of honey bees under three types of management systems, is the first to show that organic beekeeping management is sustainable and supports high honey-bee survival and honey production.

The methods beekeepers use to manage honey bee colonies are crucial in helping their bees overcome stressors such as pests, diseases, pesticide exposure and nutritional deficiencies, noted study lead author Robyn Underwood, apiculture educator for Penn State Extension.

“Beekeeping management is a key aspect of honey bee health because it can help mitigate some of the negative effects caused by these stressors,” Underwood said. “For example, supplemental feeding can mitigate a lack of flowering plants nearby for foraging, and beekeepers can manage pests such as Varroa mites with cultural, mechanical and chemical control practices.”

Despite these management tactics, 30% or more of honey bee colonies in the United States — including about 40% in Pennsylvania — die each winter, and beekeepers around the world continue to seek advice on best management practices to maintain healthy and productive bees.

Study co-author Margarita López-Uribe, associate professor of entomology and Lorenzo L. Langstroth Early Career Professor in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, pointed out that there has been little research conducted on organic beekeeping, primarily because of requirements that limit beekeepers’ ability to sell their products as certified organic.

“In addition, existing studies largely have looked at the effect of one or two aspects of management at a time,” she explained. “But in reality, risks and benefits occur in the context of numerous other management decisions involved in beekeeping. Studies like ours using a systems approach can help us better understand the long-term trade-offs among the various practices.”

To evaluate the effectiveness of various beekeeping approaches, the researchers studied nearly 300 honey bee colonies located on eight certified organic farms — six in Pennsylvania and two in West Virginia. The research team developed study protocols in collaboration with 30 experienced beekeepers

“We wanted to replicate what beekeepers were doing in their bee yards,” López-Uribe said. “It wasn’t scientists just telling beekeepers how to do things — it was beekeepers telling us how they do things, and then we collected data over multiple years comparing the different systems.”

Colonies in the longitudinal study were grouped under one of three broad beekeeping management systems based on different beekeeping philosophies:

— Conventional management, which is based on frequent intervention and application of any available chemical and nutritional supplement to keep colonies alive. This management system often is used by large-scale commercial beekeepers and incorporates the use of synthetic chemicals and antibiotics for pest and disease control.

— Organic management. This management system is based on intervention only as needed and excludes the application of synthetic chemicals or antibiotics. This system is common among small and medium-scale beekeepers and incorporates an integrated pest-management approach that combines cultural practices with organic-approved chemical treatments for pest control.

— Chemical-free management. Popular among hobbyists, this is characterized by the absence of chemical applications and the minimal frequency of interventions to the colony. This system relies strictly on cultural practices for pest control and the bees’ own defenses against pathogens.

The researchers monitored the colonies over a three-year period, recording overwintering survival and measuring honey production, parasite and pathogen abundance, and the expression of genes regulating immune function as a biomarker of honey bee health.

Their results, reported recently in Scientific Reports, showed that organic and conventional management systems both increased winter survival by more than 180% compared to chemical-free management. Organic and conventional management also increased total honey production across three years by 118% and 102%, respectively. Organic and conventional management systems did not differ significantly in survival or honey production.

For the complete article go to;

Organic beekeeping rivals conventional methods for bee health, productivity | Penn State University (psu.edu)

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Organic beekeeping rivals conventional methods for bee health, productivity | Penn State University (psu.edu)

Companies covered in honey market are Bee Maid Honey Limited (Canada), , Comvita Limited (New Zealand), , Capilano Honey Ltd. (Australia), , Dabur India Ltd. (India), , Billy Bee Honey Products (Canada), , New Zealand Honey Co. (New Zealand), , Barkman Honey LLC (U.S.), , Yamada Bee Company (Japan), , Dutch Gold Honey Inc. (U.S.), , Golden Acres Honey (Canada) & other.

Source: Fortune Business Insights

Pune, India, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The global honey market size was valued at USD 8.17 billion in 2021. The market is expected to grow from USD 8.53 billion in 2022 to USD 12.69 billion by 2029, exhibiting a CAGR of 5.83% during the forecast period. Rising demand for organic and healthy alternatives to sugar to propel market growth. Fortune Business Insights provides this information in its report titled “Honey Market, 2022-2029.”

The honey market has seen significant growth in recent years, with consumers becoming increasingly interested in natural and healthy sweeteners. Honey is a versatile ingredient that can be used in a variety of foods and beverages, as well as in natural remedies and skincare products. As a result, there has been an increase in the production of honey by both small-scale and commercial beekeepers. However, this growth has also led to concerns over the quality and authenticity of some honey products on the market.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Honey Market Size to Worth USD 12.69 Billion by 2029 | At a (globenewswire.com)

Source: EU Coordinated action to deter certain fraudulent practices in the honey sector, JRC Technical report

The EU market is flooded with syrup-based “honey”: finally putting a figure on foul play!
The European Commission published two joint reports on fraudulent practices in imports of honey into the EU. According to investigations, 46% of the collected samples were suspected of being adulterated with added syrups. This dramatic situation has been denounced by Copa and Cogeca for years now. Yet solutions are known and unanimously supported by the sector: it is high time for the EU to act!
Thanks to joint work by DG Sante, JRC and OLAF, the Commission has quantified an alarming reality: of the 320 samples received from competent national authorities, 147 (46%) were suspected of non-compliance with the requirements of the EU Honey Directive. Almost 74% of the Chinese, 93% of the Turkish and 100% of the British honey samples were considered “suspicious”!

Read the full Press Release here: Press Release