Honey and High Fructose Corn Syrup

Did you know that if you purchase honey you may actually be buying high fructose corn syrup? Organic honey is created by a conversion of sap, nectars , or pollen. Only 1/3 of North American honey production is organic. The rest of the honey is made by force feeding bees high fructose corn syrup, or other sugar syrup that fools the bees into making more honey outside of their natural production times of spring and sumer. This is done by using 24 hour hive lighting with the result being part honey and part HFCS, even though you think you are buying pure honey. Non organic honey is harvested with potentially toxic chemicals (and antibiotics) in an attempt to control disease and parasites.

Source: Sweet Deception by Dr. Joseph Mercola

More on Bees

Its -45C with windchill today, not the time of year one normally thinks of bees. I stumbled upon the subject again in chapter nineteen in Growing Older, a Chronicle of Death, Life, and vegetables by Joan Dye Gussow. In the book A World Without Bees, it talks about Colony Collapse Disorder and how it is in large part responsible for bees dying off, with 2009 being the worst year yet. But it was a quote in Joan's book that sealed my love affair with bees....

"They're dying of unrequited love. They love what they do for us. we just don't love them back".

Next year I'm planting more perennials that attract bees to the yard but right now I must get back to shoveling.

PS: I want to be like Joan when I grow up, but instead of getting ears pierced at age 80 I'll get a bee tattoo. Oh ya.

Cooking with Honey

I have been having a lot of success with cooking with honey. However, is recommended to make a few changes to your recipe. I am using the guide from Bee Maid Honey.

If recipe calls for 2 cups sugar:
Use 1 1/3 cup honey, add 1 tsp baking soda and decrease liquid by 1/3 cup.

To replace 1 cup sugar:
Use 2/3 cup honey, add 1/2 tsp. baking soda, and decrease liquid by 2 Tbsp and 2 tsp.

To Replace 1/2 cup sugar:
Use 1/3 cup honey, and 1/4 tsp baking soda, and decrease liquid by 4 tsp.

Note: I use unpasteurized local honey. Unpasteurized honey is supposed to have anti-bacterial properties. Local honey is said to
reduce allergy symptoms. I don't know if this is true, but it tastes good and I like supporting my local farmer. Also, you should do your own research before switching to honey, especially if you are planning to feed it to children under the age of 1.

Honey

The honey show at The Forks reminded me of my honey bender in July. This photo was taken at the cottage, right after spending an afternoon picking strawberries and I was on a total strawberry/honey high...or maybe it was just being in the sun too long. In any case, the neighbouring farm had just harvested ( right word?) honey and the strawberry farmer was selling it for him. I bought all of his biggest pails hoping it will last a year. My main goal is to replace white sugar with it. I love that honey doesn't go bad. Just keep it in the cupboard, and whatever you do, do NOT store it in the fridge as it will get all granular looking.






I added this site because I had never heard of Honey Launderers before, but it is not surprising either. Yikes.
http://insects.about.com/b/2009/07/16/why-you-should-buy-local-honey.htm

Bees are Back

August 14th saw another malathion spraying on my street, but this time the bees and butterflies did not disappear! Even being in a buffer zone, I assume it depends upon the wind and I was happy to see this as it took the bees a long time to come back to the yard after previous sprayings. There have been 4 sprayings on my street so far this season.

The bumble bee is my absolute favourite to watch. There are not many in the yard since the initial fogging, so it gives me great joy when I spot one in the flowers. I love how the legs dangle when they fly and watch in awe how they are able to fly with such a fat body! Another type of bee seems to be in abundance, especially in the Joe Pie Weed located just outside our front door. I ljust learned of its name.... tricoloured bumblebee. They are described as large bees, although the ones in the yard are not.

On a completely different note, I spotted a humming bird fluttering around the bean pole today!

Bee Update

Some of the bees are back, although not in the numbers as they were before the June 24th malathion spraying. Our neighbourhood was sprayed 3 more times after that. Although our property is in the buffer zone this organophosphate managed to be effective in killing off the bees and dragonflies as well as the mosquitos that were in my yard. I say this with confidence because the yard was completely still the morning after the spraying whereas the yard was buzzing with life up to the evening of spraying. It has not been the same since. The B man has a connection with a prof at U of M and next year I would like to see if one of his students would come out and do a study to see if the effects of malathion spraying matches my observations. 2 or 3 bees have recently come back to the yard and I have only spotted the odd dragonfly since. The good news in this is that the Monarchs came back rather quickly and my neighbour said she saw a handful of them in her backyard 2 weeks after the spraying. Oh yes, but this post is about bees.
There is a good book for those of us who know not much about them. It is called A World without Bees by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum. It discusses the role of bees in a colony ( very cool) as well as the troubles that are facing them. Basically honeybees are disappearing across the globe and the book has many theories as to the reason why. We are dependent on the honey bee. Apparently one on three mouthfuls that the average person eats has been pollinated by them. whoa! Even cotton is dependent on the honeybee! As Albert Einstein is reported to have said "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left". I'm not about to start my own honeybee colony in the backyard (ok so I did think about it for awhile) or anything but next year I will add a few more bee promoting plants to the ones that we already have in hope that the bees will come again.