Good luck to you on Orkney Lindsay!!
That stuff about beet sugar having neonicotinoids in it is complete gibberish, as I am sure you already know. But why let facts get in the way of another conspiracy. The beet sugar/cane sugar debate has been going for about 60 years now. The products are identical. They are routinely tested for contaminants like any food product.
You don't tend to get stories likethese around UK beet sugar though, but never mind, it's all about the pesticides.
When Chandler's supposition about beet sugar was doing the rounds I wrote to Tate & Lyle (or was it British Sugar) and got a nice reply from Richard Ali about their testing regime and its findings. Nothing, at a level of detection of 1ppb I think. I posted all this on the BBKA forum but goodness knows how you'll find it on there now after the changes. Pure fantasy, utterly debunked, and it is still being propagated.
This is what gets me about conspiracy theories.
1. No evidence will ever be presented for this claim about contamination of beet sugar, as there is no evidence - other than rambling by conspiracy theorists on the internet.
2. Does anyone really believe that a ubiquitous product such as sugar which is consumed in large quantities by humans is not routinely screened and tested for contaminants?
3. Just confirms that it is the giant lizards in control of the forum.
4. If your bees need to be fed, give them some sugar syrup from whatever source.
I'm not worried about my bees Jon just Doris.
I see that she posted the sugar conspiracy one at 3:24am, maybe there is a pattern emerging here?
Lots of bolding and even some with italics at the same time.
Not talking about Doris here, but the bee world, especially the internet bee world is full of gurus and some of them are PP beekeepers as in the way the Americans talk about PPB.
Phil Chandler, on his own forum, mentioned that he had been 'wiped out' three times in the past ten years.
This is nothing to do with pesticides and everything to do with lack of adequate varroa control.
If you live in a varroa area, the key to successful beekeeping is managing varroa and to some extent nosema imho.
Swarm control and other management techniques also apply in what makes up a successful beekeeper.
In spite of this poor success rate, Uncle Phil is a guru to many who chose to follow his methods.
How can anyone who has such a poor beekeeping record set himself up as an example to follow.
One of the mysteries of the universe.
Hi LindsayOriginally Posted by lindsay s
According to Steve Sunderland, the Scottish Lead Bee Inspector, it's now not advisable to feed bees on sugar anymore, apparently it brings on nosema. He recommends switching to readymade beefoods.
I have always fed sugar: beet sugar in Austria and cane sugar since starting to keep bees in Orkney. I have never had an outbreak of nosema.
I'll stick to cane sugar in the meantime, you are free to use beet sugar if you so desire.
It is hard to know what to say but I'm going to break my silence on this. The forum has a reputation for challenge, for getting at the truth, for fun, poking fun, and generally not being unpleasant. We happily poke fun at Borderbeeman and his posts elsewhere, we say it like it is when the UK press go off the rails, several of us are happy to make it plain what we think of a closed mind forum elsewhere. Garbage posted on another Scottish forum shouldn't be sacrosanct. So thanks for mentioning it Lindsay, I know that occasionally other Orkney beekeepers pass by and maybe exposing Doris' post here helped folk in some small way. I think that it was a good thing. Nellie worried that we were ganging up on Doris and taking it too far. Maybe, not sure. But I am sure that no-one posting was doing it to be unpleasant to Doris.
I joined in because I care about the truth. I invested time in finding the truth when Mr Chandler first raised the spectre of neonic contamination in beet sugar. It was nonsense then and it is nonsense now. Doris was on the BBKA forum at that time so she had the chance to understand the topic. There aren't neonics in beet sugar and they do test routinely. It isn't an issue.
I find it hard to believe that Steve Sunderland is saying that it isn't advisable to feed bees on sugar. I'll ask him when I next see him, but that sounds like bollocks to me. Doris, I also feed my bees sugar, usually beet sugar and sometimes I just don't know what it is. I've never found Nosema in my own stocks. They are currently hoovering in oilseed rape (just ask the improvers class that came to see them on Saturday if you don't believe me) and that rape will be from neonic-dressed seed as most of it is these days. No issues, no problem, no unexplained winter deaths, no Nosema, no nothing.
So you stick to the high carbon footprint cane sugar if you want to Doris. You stick to using a product that probably comes from a farming system that is currently despoiling more of South America's natural vegetation. I actually seek out locally (well, European) sugar when I can. Perhaps I can claim that I care more about the planet than you do, and care not one jot for the nonsense passed round by the campaigners
Steve mentioned it to me in a phone conversation about 3 or 4 weeks ago.
Yes, you could ask him. I didn't get much detail but I'm sure that he recommended invert sugar instead of regular sugar.
Btw, Gavin, the etiquette on this forum is still deteriorating and I had to report your use of foul language to the moderator.
Last edited by Stromnessbees; 15-05-2012 at 09:49 AM. Reason: addition
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