"Food-safety experts have found that much of the honey sold in the United States isn't actually honey, but a concoction of corn or rice syrup, malt sweeteners or 'jiggery' (cheap, unrefined sugar), plus a small amount of genuine honey, according to Wired UK.

Worse, some honey — much of which is imported from Asia — has been found to contain toxins like lead and other heavy metals, as well as drugs like chloramphenicol, an antibiotic, according to a Department of Justice news release.

And because cheap honey from China was being dumped on the U.S. market at artificially low prices, Chinese honey is now subject to additional import duties. So Chinese exporters simply ship their honey to Thailand or other countries, where it is relabeled to hide its origins, according to NPR.org.

This international 'honey-laundering' scandal has now resulted in a Justice Department indictment of two U.S. companies and the charging of five people with selling mislabeled honey that also contained chloramphenicol.

Honey Solutions of Baytown, Texas, and Groeb Farms of Onsted, Mich., have agreed to pay millions of dollars in fines and implement corporate compliance measures following a lengthy Justice Department investigation.

'This is a huge deal for the industry. This is the first admission by a U.S. packer,' of knowingly importing mislabeled honey, Eric Wenger, chairman of True Source Honey, told NPR. True Source Honey is an industry consortium with an auditing system to guarantee the actual origin of honey.

Honey isn't the only food product subject to impurities and mislabeling. Olive oil is often cut with cheaper oils and sold at premium prices, a practice that's expected to expand as a shortage of the oil (caused by a 2012 drought in southern Europe) hits global markets."


'Honey Laundering' an International Scandal, Experts Say
Marc Lallanilla

  "The electric fields that build up on honey bees as they fly, flutter their wings, or rub body parts together may allow the insects to talk to each other, a new study suggests. Tests show that the electric fields, which can be quite strong, deflect the bees' antennae, which, in turn, provide signals to the brain through specialized organs at their bases.

Scientists have long known that flying insects gain an electrical charge when they buzz around. That charge, typically positive, accumulates as the wings zip through the air—much as electrical charge accumulates on a person shuffling across a carpet. And because an insect's exoskeleton has a waxy surface that acts as an electrical insulator, that charge isn't easily dissipated, even when the insect lands on objects, says Randolf Menzel, a neurobiologist at the Free University of Berlin in Germany...

Now, in a series of lab tests, Menzel and colleagues have studied how honey bees respond to electrical fields. In experiments conducted in small chambers with conductive walls that isolated the bees from external electrical fields, the researchers showed that a small, electrically charged wand brought close to a honey bee can cause its antennae to bend. Other tests, using antennae removed from honey bees, indicated that electrically induced deflections triggered reactions in a group of sensory cells, called the Johnston's organ, located near the base of the antennae. In yet other experiments, honey bees learned that a sugary reward was available when they detected a particular pattern of electrical field.

The team's findings 'are very significant,' says Fred Dyer, a behavioral biologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing. 'I hadn't heard about the possibility that honey bees could use electrical fields.'

One of the honey bees' forms of communication is the 'waggle dance.' When the insects have located a dense patch of flowers or a source of water, they skitter across the honeycomb in their hive in a pattern related to the direction of and the distance to the site. Fellow worker bees then take that information and forage accordingly. The biggest mystery about the dance, Dyer says, is which senses the bees use—often in the deep, dark recesses of their hive—to conduct their communication. 'People have proposed a variety of methods: direct contact between bees, air currents from the buzzing of their wings, odors, even vibrations transmitted through the honeycomb itself,' he says.

But the team's new findings introduce yet another mode of communication available to the insects, Dyer says. He notes that the group found that antenna deflections induced by an electrically charged honey bee wing are about 10 times the size of those that would be caused by airflow from the wing fluttering at the same distance—a sign that electrical fields could be an important signal.

'They show that the electrical fields are there and that they're within the range of what the animal can sense,' Dyer says. Their claim of evidence is quite compelling.'"


Bees Buzz Each Other, but Not the Way You Think
by Sid Perkins

"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.

"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

"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

"I am interested in having a swarm of bees removed from a tree trunk in my yard. The bees are housed in a hole in my tree (about 1 foot diameter) that is only about 4 foot up from the ground. Is this something you would be able to assist with, and if so, how much do you charge?  Thank you."  - Dan


Thank you, sir , for contacting me.  You're a little ways out of my territory, as far as driving distance goes.  The best I can do is give some advice. 

I don't know how bothersome these bees are to you.  There's a high probability that they will die over the winter, which isn't too far away now.  The easiest thing to do is nothing.

However, if you really want them gone now, you may be able to find a willing beekeeper in your area at beesource.com.  If you search under "Swarm Removal", they have a list of beekeepers in Michigan that remove bees and where they are located.

Finally, if the insects are not honey bees, but rather  some other sort of stinging, flying insect (wasp, hornet, yellowjacket), I would recommend killing them yourself.  This involves taking a can of Raid Wasp/Hornet Killer (or its equivalent), going out to the tree shortly after dusk on a cool evening, and spraying the can in the tree very liberally.  Leave quickly, and you may avoid getting stung.

I hope this helps in some way.

Billy Craig

"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.

Fine art by Tyler Fox, local photographer and entomologist.

This link will take you to pictures of honey bees that I recently cut out of a fallen oak tree.

" So, what are your options? In our opinion here are your choices.

• Just leave them alone unless safety is a concern. Homeowners often follow this advice. In many cases the unmanaged bees will die over the winter due to problems with disease, parasitic mites, starvation, prolonged cold weather and other conditions. If you are convinced that the bees are dead, be sure to seal that opening as well as other places where bees may enter.
  
  
• Contact a pest control company for assistance. You may need to call several before you find one that will eradicate honey bees. Expect that eradication will not be a simple task and the charges for these services will reflect the difficulty of the job. It has been our experience that a single treatment kills only the adult bees flying or walking around the nest. After a few days the pupa, protected by the wax of their cells, will emerge as adults, so you still have a problem. We recommend that you insist they treat at least 2-3 times over a two week period.
  
  
• Find a beekeeper that will physically remove the comb and bees after the wall is removed exposing the nest. Expect to pay the beekeeper because the value of the bees is questionable at best. The labor needed to remove the colony coupled with angry bees and sticky honey makes this job difficult. When the beekeeper is done, you still have to rebuild the wall."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Bees in a Wall - What Can be Done?                                                                                                                                                   SEMBA - Southeastern Michigan Beekeepers Association