Despite the fact that bees seem to be getting fewer thanks to those dame mites, I always see lots of them around trash cans going after the sweets like open Pepsi cans and the like. It’s always a joy to see them lappin’ up that brown goo on the bottom that’s the product of millions of 9 year old tuna fish sandwiches and disposable diapers. In fact, lately it seems that you are more likely to see bees at the trash then at those lovely flowers, perhaps it’s a better food source.
My question: How much of this type of thing is ending up on my peanut butter and honey sandwich or in my cuppa tea? Is there some kind of sterilization process before the bee vomits up the honey? Or are hives also kicking over from bad eating habits?
The honey is so saturated with sugars and natural antiseptics that it can, for instance, be kept on the shelf in an open container: it does not get spoiled.
If you worry about poopoo from diapers, the bees do not obey the principle “garbage in-garbage out” (GIGO is a computer term, not a biological one). By eating honey we eat honey, not the incredients which originally entered the bee.
I would imagine also that cultured bees (i. e., the kind raised to produce honey) have a more natural diet, and are encouraged to get most of their sugar from flowers or other (deliberate) sources.
Actually, honey can contain bacteria, that, while most adults people can handle, can be dangerous for an infant. Among other things, honey often has clostridium botulinum. A baby’s immature digestive system can’t always handle this safely. Here’s a (small) reference to this: http://www.pampers.com/expert/940.html, you can find lots of info about babies and honey with a search engine. Honey is one of the last things to be introduced (normally at 1 year).
So, I wouldn’t consider honey all that clean, though it’s fine for adults.
Honey should be stored in an opaque, airtight container to avoid crystallization and flavor changes. It shouldn’t mold, though, in any case.
I would imagine also that cultured bees (i. e., the kind raised to produce honey) have a more natural diet, and are encouraged to get most of their sugar from flowers or other (deliberate) sources.
Chronos, I do not want to pick a fight with a mod, I like you and the BB and want to stay here.
I agree with you, but tell me, how do you “encourage” a bee to do anything. I tried many times, they are so stubborn, them bees, even so called “cultured” :-). Besides, the guy is afraid to swallow any doodoo. As you know, if you mix 10 gallons of white paint with a few drops of red paint, you’ll get 10 gallons of pink paint. But if you’d mix 10 gallons of honey with a few drops of crap, you’ll get 10 gallons of crap…So, if the “encouraged” bees will get most of their sugar from flowers… you got the drift…
Arjuna, do you have a scientific reference? This lady is not a doctor (M.D. or Ph.D.) and is actually a Ms. I always thought that Clostridium bot. lives in proccessed/canned food, not in naturally antiseptic honey. I ain’t an enthomologist, do not know much about honey making, etc., but it sounds odd. The toxin in question is a very potent neurotoxin and would probably kill a tiny bee. How do bees handle the it in the hive?
Why would you think honey is antiseptic, or that a bee would be susceptible to botulism?
Anyway, my primary home reference: Feeding Your Child for Lifelong Health, by Susan B. Roberts, Ph.D., and Melvin B. Heyman, M.D. (Prof. of Pediatrics at the Univ. of California). From the book (page 145):
Here are some more web links about it. I found these by typing “baby honey botulism” into yahoo:
So it looks to me like an adult can die from eating the toxin. Infants can die from eating spores that make the toxin. My guess would be that an adult digestive system destroys these spores. The bees, apparently, aren’t exposed to the toxin, only the spores.
Most commercially produced honey in the US is a byproduct of the pollination industry. Hives are placed in the middle of large fields of a monoculture crop. Commercial beehives have multiple stacking sections, called supers. Supers have special queen excluders to prevent use of the upper super to brood eggs, or pupae, and are entirely devoted to honey.
Bees generally use each new nectar source nearly exclusively while it is available. Since the hives are in the middle of huge fields of a single species of plant, that makes the honey from any particular hive very close to pure in respect to source, if the super is harvested before moving the hive elsewhere. In areas where the crops are more mixed, although the exact source plant is not as easy to control, nectar will generally be favored strongly over waste sources, unless such sources are very near the hive, and very plentiful. That is fairly easy to control.
Honey produced by hives simply dedicated to honey production, rather than pollination, generally have local flower production very carefully managed to produce a quality product. Hence the predominance of “Clover Honey” in the market. It is low in viscosity, light in color, and mildly flavored, to match the most common taste preferences of Americans. It also produces a separate product useful in other agricultural endeavors. Some orchard owners keep their own hives, and manage honey production over the year to secure pure honey for sale, and less specific honey for support of the bees. Use of sugar syrup to feed the bees is practiced, but tends to weaken the hive, and in the current environment, that is poor practice.
First let me say that I’m not afraid to swallow and doodoo. I don’t forsee giving up honey at anytime soon peace so don’t put words in my mouth. Obviously it’s full of other stuff.
I was wondering about the process of getting from the glurg and goo to honey. How is the honey changed by the inclusion of refuse intothe diet? Is there some sort of internal filtering system? Also was wondering if these easy sweets were detrimental to the bee population.
I just saw a bit on the Food Channel the other day about this guy who keeps honey bees in New York City, so they just forage in the city. I don’t know if that includes dumpster goo, though I suspect (as Porpentine says) that you’re seeing yellow jackets, not honey bees.
The company is called “Berkshire Berries” and the honey is sold under the name “New York City Honey”. It’s collected, processed, and bottled by hand and is never heated. (Apparently this is a big thing with your gourmet honeys.) The guy described the taste of his honey as “unique.” :rolleyes:
Here’s the website, which has a couple of news articles but otherwise is not very informative: http://www.bee-man.com/
I apologize for any confusion and personally to Timon. Bon appetit! Enjoy your honey, honey! Personally, I believe that too much carbohydrates in general and sugars in particular, are not “good for your health” . But if one likes and eats sweets, honey could be the best sweet product one can eat.
I’ve never heard of rarely lethal infantile botulism because it is exceedingly rare, a few cases/year in the entire country. Morbitity is slightly higher and I understand that when it happens to your child, staistics becomes irrelevant.
** Why would you think honey is antiseptic, or that a bee would be susceptible to botulism? **
I recall reading about this qualitiy of honey, many years ago. It’s not “antiseptic” as iodine solution or lysol, of course, but bacteria do not live in honey. Besides, any concentrared “solution” is hypertonic, i.e., harmful for life. High sugar concentations are used since antiquity for food preservation, e.g., in jams, fruit preserves and such.
And yes, bees, of course, can be contaminated by “harmless” Clostridium spores, not by the toxin itself. Like any living organism, a bee would be sucseptible to a highly neurotoxic toxin. “Botulim” is the desease of humans; bees would not suffer from it, of course, and I never said it.