"A team of entomologists from the University of Illinois has found a possible link between the practice of feeding commercial honeybees high-fructose corn syrup and the collapse of honeybee colonies around the world. The team outlines their research and findings in a paper they've had published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...


Commercial honeybee enterprises began feeding bees high-fructose corn syrup back in the 70's after research was conducted that indicated that doing so was safe. Since that time, new pesticides have been developed and put into use and over time it appears the bees' immunity response to such compounds may have become compromised.

The researchers aren't suggesting that high-fructose corn syrup is itself toxic to bees, instead, they say their findings indicate that by eating the replacement food instead of honey, the bees are not being exposed to other chemicals that help the bees fight off toxins, such as those found in pesticides.

Specifically, they found that when bees are exposed to the enzyme p-coumaric, their immune system appears stronger—it turns on detoxification genes. P-coumaric is found in pollen walls, not nectar, and makes its way into honey inadvertently via sticking to the legs of bees as they visit flowers. Similarly, the team discovered other compounds found in poplar sap that appear to do much the same thing. It all together adds up to a diet that helps bees fight off toxins, the researchers report. Taking away the honey to sell it, and feeding the bees high-fructose corn syrup instead, they claim, compromises their immune systems, making them more vulnerable to the toxins that are meant to kill other bugs."



Researchers find high-fructose corn syrup may be tied to worldwide collapse of bee colonies
by Bob Yirka

"Honey is more than a sweet treat to bees. It turns out that it doses honeybees with certain compounds that switch on their detox defenses.

Instead of relying on their own honey for food during the winter, today’s commercially kept honeybees often get fed sugar substitutes and protein supplements. The sugar sources such as high-fructose corn syrup may be missing something helpful, however. New tests find compounds in honey that trigger surges of activity in genes needed for detoxifying chemicals or for making antimicrobial agents, researchers report April 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Undisturbed by beekeepers, adult bees would sip flower nectar to keep themselves going and collect pollen to squish into a softened paste to feed to their young. They make honey from extra nectar and store it to eat during tough times without fresh flowers.

In that honey, the most effective trigger for detox genes is p-coumaric acid, reports entomologist May Berenbaum and her colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It’s a building block of the coatings for pollen grains."

Bees need honey's natural pharmaceuticals
By Susan Milius

"The combination of honey and lemon offers health benefits that involve fighting harmful serious diseases as well as the common cold, the London Daily Mail Newspaper's website, Mail Online, reports. Lemons, a citrus fruit, rank highest in their content of citric acid. This acid is instrumental to your digestive system and helps your stomach digest food better while boosting your metabolism. Because of this, you possibly can lose weight from consuming it. Adding honey to lemon juice provides more benefit with honey's antioxidant power. Honey helps fight off infection and soothes a sore throat."


What Are the Benefits of Honey & Lemon Juice?
By Carole Anne Tomlinson

"A cup of coffee doesn't just provide a jolt for people in the morning. Bees may crave a buzz too. Scientists have found that some plants, like the coffee plant (Coffea), use caffeine to manipulate the memory of bees. The nectar in their flowers holds low levels of caffeine that pollinators find highly rewarding.

Bitter-tasting caffeine primarily arose in plants as a toxic defense against herbivores like garden slugs. At high doses, caffeine can be toxic and repellent to pollinators.

However, at low concentrations, caffeine appears to have a secondary advantage, attracting honeybees and enhancing their long-term memory, said lead author Geraldine Wright, a neuroscientist at Newcastle University in England, whose study was published online March 7 in the journal Science."


Bees Buzzing on Caffeine
Christy Ullrich

"Honey Bee Market La Colmena, A family owned and operated business
serving the community for over 50 years!"

- http://www.honeybeemkt.com

I recommend the lunch specials.

"Royal Jelly is an amazing substance. It is secreted by the worker honeybees for consumption by the larvae and adults that become the queen bees of the hive. Royal Jelly contains vitamins A, B-complex, C, D and E. It also has the minerals calcium, copper, iron, phosphorous, potassium, silicon and sulfur. Royal Jelly contains a chemical compound called acetylcholine, which is a brain chemical required for the transmission of nerve impulses from one cell to another. Besides a boost in energy, it’s also been purported to help with anxiety, depression, and immunity. It is contraindicated for people with allergies to bees and honey, and those who are asthmatic."


5 Supplements to Help You Find Your Get Up and Go
by Michelle Gordon

"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

"Concealing discoveries of contaminated imported honey is immoral, unethical and often illegal -- and it happens far too often, U.S. honey producers say.

'It doesn't take a wizard to determine whether there are bad things in the honey we handle, nor a hero to do what it takes to keep it from our food supply,' said Mark Brady, a Texas beekeeper who sits on the National Honey Board.

'If we buy Chinese honey, as we do far too often, we know it may contain chloramphenicol or some other antibiotic that is illegal in any food product,' said Brady, who produces about a million pounds of honey a year. 'To find it and not report it is criminal.'

Two-thirds of the honey Americans consume is imported and almost half of that, regardless of what's on the label, comes from China, the Seattle P-I reported last month.
The newspaper's five-month investigation into honey laundering -- the intentional mislabeling of the country of origin -- found that tons of Chinese honey coming into the U.S. is tainted with banned antibiotics.

But when the contamination is discovered by the industry through internal testing, insiders say, federal health or customs officials are almost never notified, and the honey ends up being dumped back on the market.

That practice is wrong, said Kenneth Haff, the newly elected president of American Honey Producers.

'We don't want to risk this tainted honey ever getting packed and distributed for human consumption,' said Haff, who believes the industry could solve the problem if companies simply alert the Food and Drug Administration each time they discover a tainted shipment.

Instead, some major packers simply return bad honey to the importer, naively trusting them to destroy the shipment and not seek another buyer.

Said Haff: 'We run the risk of the importer trying to resell this same adulterated honey for a cheaper price somewhere else.'

Medical experts agree that the presence of contaminants in honey is a health concern. A small number of people can be sickened or killed by eating even trace amounts of the banned antibiotics, the FDA says in its import alerts on the Chinese honey.

One of them could be Heidi Witherspoon of Seattle, who suffers from a hypersensitivity to quinolones, a class of 'flox' antibiotics found in some honey.

'Even the littlest amount sends me into horrible pain, insomnia and twitching,' she said in an e-mail.

John Fratti, a former pharmacy representative from Hummelstown, Pa., also has severe sensitivity to the drugs Chinese beekeepers were using.

'Allowing even the slightest chance that these antibiotics and other drugs can end up in honey on our store shelves is criminal,' Fratti said. 'You can't begin to imagine the pain and harm that can come to us sensitive to those drugs.'

'It is in the interest of the honey industry to assure that adulterated honey doesn't get into the marketplace to compete with the legitimate products made by honest producers,' said Martin Stutsman, who heads most of FDA's efforts at policing adulterated food.

'We encourage industry, upon discovering that a food is adulterated, to let the local FDA office know about the particulars,' he said. 'That benefits the honest industry generally and also helps FDA in its enforcement activities to protect the public.'

But blowing the whistle on bad honey at the local level can be difficult.

Eric Olson is one of several Washington state beekeepers who say they're concerned that slipshod practices by some of the state's honey packers can endanger everyone's ability to sell honey.

'There are worrisome things happening all the time,' said Olson, who runs an apiary in Yakima.

'Truck drivers tell us about bringing full semi loads of foreign honey across the border to packers in our state and Oregon. That honey didn't come from Canadian bees, but it's sold with a label saying 'from U.S. and Canadian honey.' '

Some beekeepers have reported such practices to state and federal agencies, but 'nothing is done,' Olson said.

'We've screamed our heads off for so long, so that's kind of a dead subject. We just gave up.'"


Honey Laundering: Tainted product still slips easily into U.S. Officials are rarely notified
By ANDREW SCHNEIDER, P-I SENIOR CORRESPONDENT

"Made from pure honey, StilltheOne Distillery’s Comb Vodka, Comb 9 Gin and, new last month, Comb Blossom Brandy are getting raves from cocktail experts both in and beyond the county’s borders, much to the satisfaction of its local owners, Ed and Laura Tiedge.

'Laura and I wanted to do something special,' Mr. Tiedge said. 'The world doesn’t need another $40 potato vodka.' While learning about mead (honey wine), Mr. Tiedge hit upon the idea of distilling the honey into vodka. As he tested different varieties of honey and strains of yeast he discovered that, in addition to being a more expensive base ingredient than potatoes, honey is tricky to work with.

'The first full-scale test to make 500 gallons of the base honey wine required 1,100 pounds — half a metric ton — of orange blossom honey,' Mr. Tiedge said. 'It was a nerve-wracking $2,500 experiment. Lucky for us, it was a success.'

It takes about a gallon of honey to make the same quantity of spirits, and, though not a flavored vodka, Comb Vodka subtly retains its base ingredient’s characteristics — a slight, very appealing viscosity and exceptional smoothness. 'It’s great in a martini or for sipping straight up or on the rocks,' Joseph Price, the mixologist at Plates in Larchmont, was overheard telling a customer. The Tiedges chose orange blossom honey over clover or wildflower because the flower’s essence complements so many cocktail ingredients, especially citrus.

'Comb expresses itself beautifully in mixed drinks — when we tasted it, we were very excited by the cocktail possibilities,' said Christopher Gambelli, wine director for Moderne Barn, whose gorgeously vibrant Honey Wallbanger tarts up the vodka with peak-of-the-season blood orange juice.

Plates’s popular Tuscan Tangelini also takes advantage of Comb and seasonal citrus pairing, giving freshly squeezed tangelo juice the honeyed background notes of the vodka and a lightly herbaceous counterpoint with star anise-and-fennel-seed-infused simple syrup.

Botanicals like juniper, licorice root, galangal and lavender are among those with which the Tiedges infuse the honey spirit to make the Comb 9 Gin, which, like the vodka, sells for about $35 for a fifth. The signature blend gives drinks like the classic Negroni a distinctive, floral nose."

Cocktails for Locavores or for Lovers of Honey
By VALERIE PETERSON

"You hear 'bees' and maybe you think 'honey' or 'sting' or even 'John Belushi' if you’re old enough to recall his killer bee comedy skits from 'Saturday Night Live.' But every half-hour Saturday afternoon, Rufus Isaacs made the word-association between 'bees' and 'Big Mac' for audiences at Michigan State University’s first Bee-Palooza.

"To explain the value of bees in everyday life, Isaacs, a professor of entomology, focused on the sometimes unfamiliar relationships between bees and some of Michigan residents’ favorite foods.

"The all-beef patties McDonald’s restaurants serve by the billions? Isaac linked the beef to cows, and the cows to the alfalfa upon which they might munch and the alfalfa to — you guessed it — bees in their role as pollinators of alfalfa blooms."

Bee-Palooza at MSU proves popular
Written by Steven R. Reed



On a side note, this may help explain Michigan's obesity problem... our favorite foods come from McDonald's.