Is there any kind of juice (fruit juice) which i feed my honey bees and get honey from them. something other than sugar syrup.
The only honey you want is honey made from nectar. Honey made from sugar syrup is no good and should not be sold! If you want to feed sugar syrup honey back to the bees ok, but you better do it quickly or it will crystallize. As far as the juice goes, I have never heard of feeding bees juice.
Fruit juice gives bees the runs. If it's stored and eaten over winter, the runs can kill the bees.
The only other feed acceptable to beekeeping other than granualted and powered sugar is Corn Fractose Syrup (CFS). It is want most of the commercial beekeepers use. They can litterally buy it by the tanker truck load. Finding it in small enough lots, yet still economically feaseable prices, is the bain of the hobbiest beekeeper. It is not as good of food source as the syrup made from granulated sugar.
I bought a 5 gallon bucket of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). My bees did not like it that much. It solidified in the bottom of the boardman feeder I was using. I put a jar of HFCS and Sugar Syrup on a hive to test them. They would drink 2 or 3 jars of Sugar Syrup to 1 jar of HFCS. I did the same thing with pollen patties. I made them with HFCS and Sugar Syrup. They could eat one pollen patty a week made with Sugar Syrup and it took a month or more to eat the HFCS patty. Some people may have better luck with HFCS, but I am not a believer.
Most of what I've read suggests introducing 'less' HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP in bee hives (I've never used it myself). Plain sugar syrup is more easily digestable and perhaps has less contaminants, but one should never consume or sell honey made this way because it just ain't honey :-D.
thomas
Quote from: Brian D. Bray on June 20, 2011, 04:33:14 PM
The only other feed acceptable to beekeeping other than granualted and powered sugar is Corn Fractose Syrup (CFS). It is want most of the commercial beekeepers use. They can litterally buy it by the tanker truck load. Finding it in small enough lots, yet still economically feaseable prices, is the bain of the hobbiest beekeeper. It is not as good of food source as the syrup made from granulated sugar.
I'm a little confused as to why commercial beekeepers feed their bees so much. Are they letting the bees make honey out of it or are they feeding them to build up enough to sell bees? :?
Quote from: sterling on June 23, 2011, 12:52:50 PM
I'm a little confused as to why commercial beekeepers feed their bees so much. Are they letting the bees make honey out of it or are they feeding them to build up enough to sell bees? :?
Most commercial beekeepers are trying to build the number of hives that they have for either pollination or for queen/nuc production. They do not feed them once the supers are added and the wax is drawn on the first super.
Quote from: sawdstmakr on June 23, 2011, 01:10:35 PM
Quote from: sterling on June 23, 2011, 12:52:50 PM
I'm a little confused as to why commercial beekeepers feed their bees so much. Are they letting the bees make honey out of it or are they feeding them to build up enough to sell bees? :?
Most commercial beekeepers are trying to build the number of hives that they have for either pollination or for queen/nuc production. They do not feed them once the supers are added and the wax is drawn on the first super.
That said there are a few unscrupulous folks out there that do feed the supers full and then call that "honey".
.
I was in Malaysia and bought a bottle of honey. It was light yellow and not much aroma.
Later I was told that it is not real honey. It has been made from fruit and vegetable juices.
I have rean that honey is too made in philipiness from sugar cane juice. Juice has 15 %sugar.