What have you done today bee-related?

[MickBBKA]

Watched the garden bees stuffing huge amounts of ivy pollen in today. This colony was my last nuc of the Summer and its going great. Thermometer on crown board still at 33C so must be brooding. Used it to clean my sticky supers last month.

[NigelP]

24 out of 25 supermarket honeys fail authencitity tests.
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/n ... icity-test

[AdamD]

The Celvia analysis confirms previous tests which indicated that most supermarket honey has been adulterated. There was a documentary from the US a few years ago which highlighted the adulteration issue.
The fact that most supermarket honey is labelled as "From EU and non EU" sources means that it is simply anything stuffed in a jar.

I believe that China has such a bad reputation, that it routes its honey through third countries to hide the source.

[NigelP]

If you read the current labels Adam, the EU has largely disappeared and replaced by non eu only.
We import nearly 400, 000 tons of honey from China per year.......
One of their outlets is Vietnam, which was a very small honey producer until recently.
The states has it right as it adds what they call an anti-dumping tax on Chinese honey, meaning it is not cheap to import into the states, hence China trying to find alternative routes.
Whole honey packing industry is corrupt.
Interesting comment from the Apimondia (spelling) International Conference held in South America last year was they don't sell honey to UK as the UK won't pay their prices...i.e prefer to buy cheap adulterated stuff. If article in Guardian was correct 80p for 2Kg.....

[JoJo36]

Sounds about right Nigel!
This country chose apply tariffs to chinese honey and take a great tip from Donald, then the 'real' home produced stuff would be indeed 'liquid gold' as it should be, bearing in mind the time, sweat and tears involved in producing it and the far far superior taste and nutritional value! Sounds like everything being decimated so that we end up with no home grown industries and then have to rely on our so called EU allies??!!

[MickBBKA]

I find it shocking that large so called 'British' honey suppliers are selling honey from all over the world, bought in cheap and sold at a premium. My labels state 'Produce of England' I think exact countries of origin should be on the label.
How do you find the food hygiene rating of something from 10 countries ?

[Alfred]

Hope everyone and their bees are fine.
We took a trip out this morning in the unpredicted snowfall to deliver a honey order and put turmoil wraps on the hives.
A few hives had flight activity so there were a few pauses in the project because we were without suits and gloves.
One colony has almost got through its fondant already so will need more.
All others ok,having culled/combined the apiary down to the strongest and/or better behaved eight.
They always go for the home made fondant before even touching the autumn syrup so next year Im considering fondant-only as they end up moving it about in spring and there's often a bit of syrup or ivy honey left in peak season.

[NigelP]

-7c here this morning....I think no beekeeping will be done today.

[JoJo36]

Heavy rain and cold in Devon too Nigel although not that cold!!
That looks like a beautiful location for your bees Alfred:)

[MickBBKA]

I was at a Christmas Fair at Ripon Cathedral. We had 5 inches of snow, minus 5C but nothing in Teesside 45mins away. It just goes to show the different weather patterns locally never mind the BBKA accepted national view of Southern beekeeping. They haven't got a clue about the regions in the UK and need to either wake up or disband. This association isn't fit for purpose.