"Some fear higher world food prices are making food counterfeiting the next big global trend. Counterfeit food is a way to steal millions and put food safety at extreme risk...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has its own police force for tackling fraudulent foods and drugs...

At last month’s 9th Annual Anti-Counterfeiting and Brand Protection Summit held in Midtown West, NY, a fact sheet from DuPont said counterfeiting cost U.S. businesses $200 billion to $250 billion annually, affecting 92 percent of Fortune 500 companies. Food and beverages are only a slice of that, of course, but consider that Russia has documented $3.3 billion in annual losses due just to counterfeit vodka, the total for food and beverage products would probably be staggering.

Michigan State University’s Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection Program has developed a national data base for tracking counterfeit food by looking for such characteristics as:

-Diluted oil, 16 percent of counterfeit food cases involve olive oil.

-Diluted milk, 14 percent of counterfeit food involved watered down milk.

-Adulterated honey, 7 percent of counterfeit food involved were adulterated sugar and corn.

MSU’s Anti-Counterfeiting program even has a top ten list for food most likely to be phony. Making the list are: vanilla extract, maple syrup, grape wine, apple juice, coffee, orange juice, saffron, honey, milk, and olive oil."



Food Safety Endangered Worldwide by Increased Food Counterfeiting
By Dan Flynn

"Honey bees are big money makers for U.S. agriculture. These social and hardworking insects produce six hive products – honey, pollen, royal jelly, beeswax, propolis, and venom – all collected and used by people for various nutritional and therapeutic purposes.

Honey, of course, is the most well-known and economically important hive product. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Agriculture Statistics Service, honey bees made more than 148 million pounds of honey last year. With the cost of honey at a record high at about $1.73 per pound, that’s a value of over $256 million.

After honey, beeswax is the second most important hive product from an economic standpoint. The beeswax trade dates to ancient Greece and Rome, and in Medieval Europe, the substance was a unit of trade for taxes and other purposes. The market remains strong today. Beeswax is popular for making candles and as an ingredient in artists’ materials and in leather and wood polishes. The pharmaceutical industry uses the substance as a binding agent, time-release mechanism, and drug carrier. Beeswax is also one of the most commonly used waxes in cosmetics. The U.S. is a major producer of raw beeswax, as well as a worldwide supplier of refined beeswax.

But the greatest importance of honey bees to agriculture isn’t a product of the hive at all. It’s their work as crop pollinators. This agricultural benefit of honey bees is estimated to be between 10 and 20 times the total value of honey and beeswax. In fact, bee pollination accounts for about $15 billion in added crop value. Honey bees are like flying dollar bills buzzing over U.S. crops.

Luckily for the honey bees and the many crops that depend on them for pollination, FDA recently approved a new drug to control American foulbrood, a widespread bacterial disease that kills bee larvae."


New Drug Approved to Help Agriculture's Helpful Honey Bees
By Melanie McLean, DVM, Center for Veterinary Medicine, FDA

"Dear friends, as I conclude, I would like to add one more thought about light and illumination. On Easter night, the night of the new creation, the Church presents the mystery of light using a unique and very humble symbol: the Paschal candle. This is a light that lives from sacrifice. The candle shines inasmuch as it is burnt up. It gives light, inasmuch as it gives itself. Thus the Church presents most beautifully the paschal mystery of Christ, who gives himself and so bestows the great light. Secondly, we should remember that the light of the candle is a fire. Fire is the power that shapes the world, the force of transformation. And fire gives warmth. Here too the mystery of Christ is made newly visible. Christ, the light, is fire, flame, burning up evil and so reshaping both the world and ourselves. “Whoever is close to me is close to the fire,” as Jesus is reported by Origen to have said. And this fire is both heat and light: not a cold light, but one through which God’s warmth and goodness reach down to us.

The great hymn of the Exsultet, which the deacon sings at the beginning of the Easter liturgy, points us quite gently towards a further aspect. It reminds us that this object, the candle, has its origin in the work of bees. So the whole of creation plays its part. In the candle, creation becomes a bearer of light. But in the mind of the Fathers, the candle also in some sense contains a silent reference to the Church. The cooperation of the living community of believers in the Church in some way resembles the activity of bees. It builds up the community of light. So the candle serves as a summons to us to become involved in the community of the Church, whose raison d’être is to let the light of Christ shine upon the world."


Pope Benedict XVI’s Sermon For Easter: Creation, Light, And Bees

"Honey has been called the food of the gods; because it’s nutritional and healing properties have been known for thousands of years. It is a natural product with beneficial effects. It has been used for centuries as a cure-all; sometimes with miraculous results. It can be used both internally and topically for a myriad of conditions. Honey is hygroscopic; which means it has the property of absorbing moisture. It has natural antiseptic and soothing properties and is still found today in some creams and ointments as well as cough and cold remedies. This golden nectar can help to support your immune system and make disease resistance easier. Because it is a natural product there should never be any side effects...
Honey is produced all over the world and Cinnamon is widely grown in Sri Lanka, India, Java, Sumatra, the West Indies, Brazil, Vietnam, Madagascar, Zanzibar, and Egypt. Did you know though that when the two are combined they become a force to be reckoned with?

WHAT ARE THEY REPUTED TO CURE?
ANTI-AGEING...ARTHRITIS...BAD BREATH...BLADDER INFECTIONS...CHOLESTEROL...COLDS...CANCER...FATIGUE...GAS...HEART DISEASES...HAIR LOSS & BALDNESS...HEARING LOSS...INDIGESTION...INFERTILITY...INFLUENZA...IMMUNE SYSTEM...INSECT BITES...PIMPLES...SKIN INFECTIONS...TOOTHACHE...UPSET STOMACH...WEIGHT LOSS..."


CINNAMON & HONEY THE MAGIC MIXTURE
by Sue Bailey

"So what can we do to help our bees make it through winter? There is no plan that ensure 100% survival. Bees are livestock. Things can just go bad. But a few things can help.

Typically, most consider winter preparations consists of the following:
1) Put on a mouse guard at the entrance.
2) Lift the hive and see if it has enough stored honey by how heavy it is.
3) Wrap the hive with some sort of insulation or roofing paper.
4) We build a wind break.
5) We treat for mites and nosema.

These might be good measures to take. However, they are not fail proof. In fact, here are three concerns that probably cause our hives to die during the winter that many overlook:

1) Queenlessness. Your hive is most certain to die if your queen is weak or gone going into winter.
2) Winter Condensation. If you seal up your hive too tight, you might increase the overall condensation within the hive and cause this cold water to constantly drip onto the cluster and eventually kill your hive.
3) Keeping stored honey next to the winter cluster. How many times do we hear that a hive died even though there was plenty of honey.

So, here’s my checklist for what you should be doing to your hives now to prepare for a great hive in the spring:

1) Remove queen excluders.
2) Remove honey supers.
3) Examine the amount of stored honey and be sure your bees have plenty. Most beekeepers in the north lift the back of the hive and hope it feels like there is 70 pounds of stored honey. 70 pounds is the approximate equivalent of 1 medium super full of honey.
4) If your hive is short on stored honey, FEED! Feed 2:1 sugar water. Use an internal or top feeder if robbing is a problem. Robbing is more of a problem during the fall dearth.
5) Make sure that your hive has some sort of upper ventilation. It does not have to be much but something. We now make our inner covers with ventilation slots. And we leave our screen bottom boards open all winter.
6) Use good mouse guards, either metal or wooden entrance cleats to keep mice out.
7) Treat the hives 3 weeks in a row with powdered sugar for mite control. This is best started in August.
8) If wrapping hives, be sure to allow upper ventilation.
9) Combine weak hives with strong ones. Most of the small swarms you caught are not going to winter well unless you caught them in May. Do not feel like a failure if you’ve worked hard to build up your numbers, but now you have to slice your hive count in half by combining hives. Combining ten hives into 5 which survive the winter is better than having 8 out of 10 die out.

Much can be said about preparing a hive for winter, but the hive that has the best chance of surviving the winter will be the hive that was very strong all year and has a young queen. Remember, a strong hive is more apt to be pest and disease free, thus overwintering much better because it does not have viruses caused by mites."


LESSON 40: The Beekeeping Year Starts In The Fall
David & Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
217-427-2678
www.honeybeesonline.com

"Honey-bees are known for their sting, but scientists have now discovered they can also bite.

Bees resort to biting when faced with pests, such as parasitic mites, that are too small to sting.

Close study of the biting behaviour has revealed that they secrete a chemical in their bite that stuns pests so they are easier to eject from a colony.

Tests suggest the chemical could also have a role in human medicine, as a local anaesthetic."



Honey-bees found to have bite that stuns
from BBC © 2012

A couple of nice pics here as well as a brief description of honey bee queen replacement procedures...


Can a bee colony replace its queen?
from Earthsky

"Bees or something flying in and out of small holes in the mortar in the fireplace. Neighbors just want me to blast them with Raid Wasp Killer, but I would prefer a different approach.

I would love for this to somehow be a win/win situation for us and the bees. Can you help?"  - Mr. M


Hello Mr. M,

Bees behind brick or concrete can be very difficult and expensive to remove.  However, you are in luck.  Michigan winters are very hard on all species of bees.  Whether you have honey bees or some other kind of insect, it's very likely to die off over the winter.  Honey bees have a 50/50 chance of making it.  All the other flying/stinging insects will die soon after the cold weather arrives to stay.  The most reasonable thing to do, in my opinion, is to just wait for nature to run its course.  I think your problem will solve itself.

I hope that's an answer you like hearing, and good luck!

Billy Craig

"Have a large bee hive in a tree in my front lawn which needs removal. Just discovered it. The weight is causing it to fall closer to vehicles in driveway. Need help with removal."  - Mr. C


Hello Mr. C,
I'm responding about the beehive in the tree.  I was wondering where you live and how high off of the ground is the hive?  Also, is the hive made out of paper or are there bees crawling all over the outside of it?  My suspicion is that the nest is a hornet's nest, in which case, they'll all be dead very soon (perhaps this weekend, if it gets as cold as predicted). Then your problem is solved.  Once it drops below freezing for a few days, you can be sure that the hornets are dead, and then you can knock the nest off the limb without any worries.  If they're honey bees, which seems unlikely, then you may have to wait longer for them to die.  In that case, depending on your location, I may be able to come out and get them.

Hope that helps,
Billy Craig