# Dearth Feeding...



## justgojumpit (May 5, 2003)

I have an idea for feeding my bees during a time of nectar dearth. Near us, there is a small garden and produce store where i sell my honey. The owner of the store decided that he would dest how far my bees would actually fly. Now, there happened to be a nectar dearth at this time. He cut open an old watermelon and laid the two halves outside behind his store. By the end of the day, all that was left was the rinds. my bees had completely emptied the watermelon. My question to you is this: Would it be ethical to feed the bees old sugary fruit during a time of nectar dearth and call the resulting product "watermelon honey" or "honeydew melon honey" or "strawberry honey?" I would use old produce from the supermarket, especially high-sugar fruits such as strawberries, melons, and the like. This wouldn't be like selling sugar syrup as honey, but could i really call this honey or not? Thanks,

justgojumpit


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## cnj_fnr (Oct 27, 2004)

since honey is supposed to be flower nector (along with unavoidable pollen, and sometime bee parts  I would suspect that such feeding would be considered as diluted honey, which is generally frowned upon.

Also "named" honey implies that the honey is made from flowers of the named plant, not fruit sugars.

So ethical? I would not sell it to others as proposed, but it would be interesting to see what kind of flavor was developed to see if it was worth determining if it was legal. After all it could be a whole new way to market honey, or bee based sweeteners... value added so to speak (after all they have peach flavored creamed honey).

Then again, do you know that it was just honey bees taking the mellon, vs yellow jackets?


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## justgojumpit (May 5, 2003)

yes, they were honey bees. the storekeeper knows enough to tell the difference between these two insects.

justgojumpit


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