What's in a Name? The Confusion of the Name: Certified Naturally Grown

"What’s in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;"   William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet As all companies who struggle with branding know, a name means EVERYTHING.  I once saw a yellow ribbon tied around a tree (the symbol designating the wish for a soldier to come home from war) with a huge sign that said "Yellow Ribbon Tree Removal."  A strange name for a tree removal company, I thought, since the name implied that although they chopped down the trees, they would come (grow) back. When I first encountered Certified Naturally Grown at EAS in Boone, NC in 2010, I was thrilled that there was a way to designate something natural in the beekeeper's approach.  How I read and interpreted or assumed what the designation meant was that the beekeeper would be as organic as possible. Organic is not something a beekeeper can claim.  Our bees gather nectar far and wide from an area up to six or so miles from the hive.  As such, we have no idea if the plants they choose have been treated (likely) with insecticides that might be harmful to the bees.  But as beekeepers we can do our best to keep pesticides out of our hive management practices by going treatment free. But upon reading the requirements for Certified Naturally Grown, I think Shakespeare is wrong on this one.  It doesn't smell so sweet. Essentially what the designation means is that the beekeeper is practicing IPM (Integrated Pest Management).  In other words, the beekeeper is certifying that before he/she uses heavy poisons, he/she will have tried conservative methods first:  powdered sugar (which does work for the backyard beekeeper but not for the commercial beekeeper), drone trapping, etc.  But CNG allows oxalic acid, formic acid to a degree, HopGuard, ApiGuard, Apilife Var, etc. Thankfully they do prohibit Coumaphos and Fluvalinate. Of my fellow beekeepers who have applied, the only one who comes closest to treatment free is Jay Parsons and he uses ApiLife Var when "needed."  And although regular inspections are required, the inspector doesn't have to be qualified as a CNG beekeeper themselves, which seems a little odd.  Any other beekeeper who is willing to take the time can inspect an apiary and declare it Certified Naturally Grown.  In looking at Jay's inspection record, none of the people who have "inspected" his operation are themselves qualified as CNG and that is true of the other two people I know whose inspection reports I read. CNG puts no limits on feeding sugar syrup (despite it being a marked different pH than honey).  The president of our bee club, who urges everyone to "feed, feed, feed," and says on her application for CNG that she feeds heavily in fall and spring,  has qualified for CNG as has Jennifer Berry who feeds her bees 100% of the time, with no break, as she reported at the short course. So I feel a little confused.  Should I apply for CNG?  My hives meet the requirements and then some, but since it appears to be simply a label implying something that isn't true, I feel somewhat hesitant.  I expect people who buy honey labeled CNG are assuming that being certified naturally grown means that nothing artificial goes into the hive - which depending on the individual beekeeper could be far from true.  These purchasers have no idea what IPM means, so CNG stands as somewhat of a misrepresentation just because of what's in the name.  (It isn't a rose.....)

Unnecessary Feeding of Bees in the Spring and the Backyard Beekeeper

At the February meeting of the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers, at the end of the meeting the president said as an announcement:  "If you aren't feeding your bees, you should.   Go home and feed, feed, feed."  I wasn't there for the end of the March meeting (I left a little early), but was told that again she emphasized, "Go home and FEED YOUR BEES."

At the short course in January, Jennifer Berry told the new beekeepers attending the course that at UGA they feed their bees every single day - over 500 hives.  She said, "We don't have the time to check each hives for stores so we just feed constantly all year long."

The key point that she mentioned is that they don't have time to check each hive.

When I opened my hives for the first time this year, every single one of them was bringing in nectar and storing it up.  They even had some newly capped honey.

Why would I feed those bees?

Feeding at the spring time has impact on the hive - sometimes it means the bees build up population when there may not be a nectar flow to support the build up.  The commercial beekeeper may need to do that to assure their bees are highly populated for their pollination business or the research apiarist may need to assure that their research study can have the hives available.

But the backyard beekeeper can let the bees do what they know instinctively to do - which it is to adapt to their current environment.

What if a tremendous amount of brood laying has been stimulated artificially by feeding sugar syrup and suddenly (as we are known to do in March in Atlanta) we have a cold spell?  The bees aren't able to keep that amount of brood warm and they die.

Another effect of feeding is that the bees backfill the cells available to the queen for laying and it creates the illusion that the bees don't have enough space.  So they swarm when really there was room for the queen to lay, but the beekeeper confused things by providing unnecessary sugar syrup.

At this time of year, all of the push in the beehive is for the bees to put away supplies for the winter ahead (in this case the upcoming winter eight or nine months from now).  We harvest the honey they are creating now in the early summer in Atlanta.  That honey, if the beekeeper does spring feeding when the nectar is being stored, will be in part sugar syrup.

We criticize beekeepers in China for contaminating the honey they sell with sugar syrup, among other noxious things.  How can we?  Almost every beekeeper I know in Atlanta is being told to feed their bees (and thus add sugar syrup to their honey).

Dean Stiglitz has suggested that if you want to make sure you are not harvesting honey diluted with sugar syrup, then put blue food coloring in the sugar syrup you feed your bees and if your "honey" is blue, you'll know your sugar syrup is in your "honey."

The university beekeepers are not raising their bees for honey - they are researching genetics, the varroa mite, and other things of interest to the commercial beekeeper.  They don't see a need to be careful about feeding.

The backyard beekeeper has the luxury of being able to look into every hive and determine, hive by hive, when feeding is or is not needed.

We are told that the bees use the sugar syrup for building wax and that the syrup won't show up in the honey that is stored "later."  My bees are storing honey NOW.   I would challenge our club president to put bright blue food coloring in the sugar syrup she is feeding to her bees and see if her honey is tinted blue at harvest.

I will not follow the admonition of the club president to FEED, FEED, FEED.  I do not see the point when my hives are not hungry.

Mysterious Marauder at the Blue Heron!

I stopped by the Blue Heron this afternoon. The temperatures are in the low 50s and I thought I might see some bees. I really miss my bees at home and wish I had a hive to watch everyday here as I used to.

When I arrived, Julia's hive was opened up with the hive top feeder exposed to the sky. The inner cover, the ventilated inner cover and the hive top were neatly stacked on the ground behind the hive. The hive top covered everything and was top side up, unlike we would place it during an inspection.

Wonder what kind of creature would do this? I imagine it might have been a raccoon whose paws/hands are small enough to push from under the hive top. But if a raccoon opened the hive, why didn't he stay around to drink the syrup?

Sadly the open sugar syrup swimming pool was filled with drowned bees. Julia had called me from the Blue Heron on Friday when the temperatures were in the 60s to say her hive top had been moved slightly off. I guess the marauder returned after she left to finish the job.

Julia and I decided I should dump the feeder on the ground to stop further drownings and put the hive back together. In removing the feeder, I slid the second box (I had no hive tool with me) and found to my sadness that the hive contains no bees. I called Julia again and we thought leaving the hive empty on its site might serve to lure a swarm in the spring.



See all the sad, dead bees floating in the syrup? These aren't my usual quality of pictures because I took them with my phone.



My hive had bees flying out of it. I tried to catch a picture when there were three or four on the landing, but I only caught this one (in ten photo opps!) Oh, well. There are bees in my hive. Let's hope they continue to live through the rest of the winter.

When Sugar Syrup Crystallizes!

In preparation for going to the mountains for Christmas, I took the tops off of the crystallized honey from Topsy and this is what I found:  totally crystallized sugar with ants caught in the sugar.

How do you imagine the ants got stuck there?  They certainly died a sweet death, but it's hard to imagine the crystallization happening so fast that they couldn't escape!



Here's the camera on another setting viewing the stuck ants....their feet encased in crystallized sugar.



The other jar looked about the same.  This is why I am now adding lemon juice to the bee tea.  The chemical result is that the sugar syrup doesn't crystallize.


I have not put food on Topsy since after Thanksgiving.  It has been extremely cold in Atlanta - in the 20s most days - so I wasn't thinking the bees would be able to move around.  We are about to go into January and February when the bees are most in danger of starving so I have my fingers crossed for my hives.

It is SO hard to make 2:1 Syrup

About half the time I succeed; about half the time, it crystallizes. It is such a frustrating process. And the hard part is you don't know it's going to crystallize until after it has cooled off.

I made 2:1 syrup (actually bee tea - chamomile and thyme added to the 2:1 syrup) early this morning to take to Valerie's house today. I poured it into jars while warm, put it in the car and delivered it to Topsy around noon today. The third jar that I filled is crystallizing tonight. That means that the syrup I put on Topsy will also be crystallizing.....GRRRR.



According to this site, saturating the solution with sugar to the point at which the water can take no more is an invitation for crystals to form.  This is why so many commercial beekeepers use high fructose corn syrup.  Fructose does not crystallize.  But sucrose (sugar) does.  You add lemon juice or cream of tartar to candy to keep it from crystallizing.  I will look into whether anyone ever adds lemon juice to 2:1 sugar syrup.

You can see the crystals forming at the bottom of this jar.  Once it gets started the crystals beget more crystals and on and on like Genesis until the entire bottle is solid sugar again.



Another view of my frustration.



The two bottles of 2:1 that I took off of Topsy also had been busy crystallizing, as you can see in the picture below with crystals forming around the top of the jar (the bottom as it is set into the Boardman inside the top bar hive - I don't feed with Boardman feeders on the outside of any hive).  The bees had pretty much emptied the jars despite the crystals, thank goodness.



I have all kinds of objections to high fructose corn syrup, but adding a tablespoon is recommended to keep crystal formation from starting.  I think also adding a small bit of lemon juice might accomplish the same thing.  I may try this in my next batch.

After one of the comments below, I looked up Honey B Healthy and it does have lemongrass in the mix - maybe the acid of the lemongrass in it is what keeps the syrup from forming crystals because the sugar in it is sucrose.

Tomorrow when I make more bee tea I'm going to try to add a teaspoon of lemon juice and see what the effect is on the crystal issue.  BTW, I found a post on Beemaster where someone recommends adding a little lemon juice to the mix.

Ross Conrad's Bee Tea

 August's Bee Culture has an article by Ross Conrad (he writes an article every month) on beekeeping in the northeast.  As it is autumn, he talks about preparing the hive for the winter.  Included as a sidebar for the article is his recipe for Bee Tea.  I decided to try it for feeding the bees at Blue Heron.

Here's the recipe:
16 cups white cane sugar
6 cups hot tap water
2 cups Chamomile or Thyme tea (already brewed)
1/2 tsp natural sea salt with minerals

You add the hot tap water to the sugar and salt and stir thoroughly (?).  You do boil the water for the tea and steep it for 10-15 minutes.  Then you mix it all together and store unused amounts in the refrigerator.

I have a hard time making 2:1 syrup without using really hot water.  Maybe the water out of the tap in Vermont where Ross lives is hotter than here in Atlanta! (note:  comment below indicates it's probably the chemistry of the water in Vermont compared to my Metro Atl water).

So  I heated my water and then stirred in the sugar and salt.  Even at that, I couldn't add the last four cups because the first 12 had not thoroughly dissolved.

My answer was to stir the last four cups into the hot tea after it had steeped.

The next time I make it, I will steep the tea and then stir the steeped tea into the water heating on the stove.  Then before the water boils, I'll turn it off and then stir in the sugar and salt.

Making the tea:

 Stirring all of it together:

Adding the syrup to my Blue Heron hive (notice it is more yellow than the usual clear syrup, courtesy of the Chamomile) :

You may wonder why I have both a baggie and a Boardman inside this hive.  It's an 8 frame hive and can't take two baggies, so I put a Boardman in so that I could put more feed on the hive at the same time, since there's room for the Boardman inside the medium box that is surrounding the feeding mechanisms.

Another post about Ross Conrad

Kitchen Supplies and Beekeeping

In addition to its many other troubles - SHB, a queen that isn't laying, a hive that isn't thriving, Mellona has ants. I see a steady stream of them marching up the sides of the hive and into tiny spaces between boxes.

Cinnamon is supposed to be a deterrent so I sprinkled it on the stone base of the hive where the ants appear to gain access.

I don't see ants on the other side of the hive but for preventive medicine, I sprinkled the cinnamon there too.

I'm struck by all the kitchen supplies I am using for the bees. I realize now that the reason I bought the enormous cinnamon container at Costco several years ago must have been unconsciously in preparation for this moment. I also frequently purchase huge bags of sugar both at the grocery and at Costco.

There is no nectar in Atlanta and none of my hives are in good shape for winter. I know Sam Comfort would say that I should see which hive survives without my feeding any of them, but I can't stand it this year. I have often not fed going into winter, but this year, it's sugar syrup all the way.

And the other kitchen supply not picture here is powdered sugar that I start using about this time of year to help the bees go into winter with few varroa mites.

Two Packages, Two Installs - Let's hope for SUCCESS!

I had the privilege to stop in Lula, Georgia at Don Kuchenmeister's lovely beeyard to pick up two packages on Saturday. It was raining cats and dogs. Don had a ton of bees in his basement. I asked him to pick my two packages. Here he is holding the two packages of bees.



I've had a couple of telephone conversations with Don. He is a gem of a beekeeper. He colors outside the lines. He has lovely bees. These bees were so calm and easy to install. I want to go up and spend some time with Don. He only lives about an hour from my house and he's right on the way to my mountain house, so you can rest assured that I will be visiting him again.

BTW, he had PINK nuc boxes in his beeyard. His beehives were in a pine grove and he was about to go to work the hives in the RAIN. He's quite the renegade beekeeper, and I'd love to learn more from him.



I drove to Rabun County where I was supposed to install the bees and then give a talk to the community gardeners. However, the weather (part of the system that spawned the tornado in Yazoo City, MS) was in Georgia all day yesterday. I gave my talk to the gardeners (Meet the Bee, I called it!), but I couldn't install the bees until this morning.

Today I set up the hive box and took out two frames in preparation for the installation. I've, BTW, never installed a package in my beekeeping career. So I was a little nervous.

First I sprayed the bees (who spent the night in the basement of my mountain house) with sugar syrup. They immediately calmed down.



I wasn't sure if the queen cage was secured so I put a tack in the tape that secured it.  I've seen videos on the Internet with the beekeeper dropping the queen cage into the bottom of the package as he/she lifts out the syrup can.

Then I pried up the thin piece of wood serving as a top.



I pulled up the can of syrup which was still quite full, and then pulled up the queen cage. I took the cork out of the candy end of the queen cage.

This wasn't the easiest thing I have ever done - it was hard to pry up the staples.  But I succeeded.  Then I found that the queen cage was also stapled.  I have an Italian hive tool which has a curved end, perfect for prying up the staple in the tape holding the queen cage.

I took the queen cage and hung it into the hive body by tacking the tape to the top of a frame.  Then I turned the package upside down and dumped the bees in.  I had to slant the package back and forth a little to get all of them to leave it and go down into the hive.

Then I returned the two frames to the box and closed it up.   I  put a shim around the top to contain a baggie feeder of sugar syrup to help the bees get started.

I hope this will help these bees since I can't come back until Sunday, May 1.  

I left the hive with the almost empty package container in front of it to leave any errant bees a chance to get with their queen.  I put a brick on top to secure the hive top.  And then I drove back to Atlanta until next Sunday when I come back to check up on them.

They are behind and back of the community garden and I hope they don't draw too much attention.  See them in the back in the center of the picture.  I hope they are of great benefit to the gardeners!

The Fate of the Crystallized Sugar

You'll remember that yesterday when feeding the bees, I found a baggie feeder with crystallized sugar in it. Rather than take it back into the house, I spread it out on the railing of my deck.

I went out this morning (you can see on the thermometer that the temp is below 60 degrees) to find the sugar covered with bees.



If you click on the picture below so that you can see a larger image, you'll see the bees sticking their tongues into the sugar. It was raining this morning and probably some of the sugar liquified.



As I studied this picture, I realized that in addition to honey bees, there were yellow jackets and a bald faced hornet feeding on the sugar.



If you couldn't find them, I have circled the yellow jackets in red and the bald-faced hornet in blue. Everyone's hungry, I guess!

Hive Box for BT2

So here's the rest of the story of BT2.


Here is the second bee tree. There is less activity; it's a smaller hive; and as always with a tree felling, the queen may not have survived the "earthquake" that happened to the tree. But I'm going to proceed with hope that she is there and the hive may survive.


I've nailed the plywood over the hole. Then I set a box filled with drawn comb frames.



Finally I set a baggie of sugar syrup over the frames and slit the baggie. This treetop is quite slanted so the sugar syrup wanted to run out of the hive box. I am going to have to try to level the box with wood shims the next time I am over there.



I put a second hive box (empty) around the baggie and put an upside down bottom board on for a top. I have a better top and will bring it the next time I come to these hives.

The whole contraption looks a little crazy but I think it may work if we can entice the bees to move up.

The Messy Sugar Syrup Process

When people talk about harvesting honey, there's always some discussion about how messy the process is. When I harvest via crush and strain, I put cardboard under everything, keep the harvesting in a small area of my kitchen and have very little clean-up. I put the cardboard outside on the sidewalk and the bees clean it up. The equipment - a pan, a rubber spatula, a pestle, a sharp knife - is easily cleaned in the sink.

Making sugar syrup is an entirely different matter. I find it very messy and difficult to clean up. Since the process takes place on my gas stove, I can't line the burners with anything and sugar and drippy syrup get all over EVERYTHING.

When I'm done, there are sugar drips on the stove, on the floor, on the counter, on my clothes, on every square inch in the vicinity of the pot.



Drips happen in the pouring of the syrup from the pot to the ziploc baggie. The measuring cup drips. The pot is too heavy for me to pour and hold the baggie open at the same time so I start by transferring the syrup from the pot via a glass one cup measure. Drippy, drippy, drippy.



And in pouring the sugar into the boiling water, sugar gets sprinkled all over my burners.



The only discovery that has diminished the mess is that I discovered that two of these one quart mixing bowls (see photo below) filled to this level = eight cups of sugar. I then don't have to make as many transfers from the bag of sugar to the boiling water. That has cut down on the sugar on the counter.

When I'm finished I have to clean at least three or four pots, three or four mixing bowls, an assortment of whisks, a sharp knife, and of course, the kitchen counter, the floor and the stove top.

In addition the bees go through a baggie in about five days so I am feeding at least once a week and often more. So unlike harvesting which takes place a couple of times each summer, this feeding mess and clean up happens weekly or more and has been continuous since the beginning of September.



All in all, I'd say making and using sugar syrup in ziploc baggies is the biggest clean-up challenge I've had so far in beekeeping.