https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/beekeeper-oxford-bragg-honey-contamination-1.6520210
N.S. beekeeper says big company's feeding practices are contaminating his honey
Bragg Lumber is open-feeding its bees sugar water, which affects the taste of honey
McKee's roadside stand is lined with jars of dark golden honey produced right in his backyard.
This is a busy time for McKee's bees. They're out gathering as much nectar as they can to make honey, usually flying up to three kilometres away to collect nectar from clover, daisies, wild roses and any other flowers they can find.
But McKee says he and other small-scale honey producers in the province are facing a threat from the beekeeping operations of Bragg Lumber, a division of Oxford Frozen Foods.
The company uses thousands of hives to pollinate its blueberry fields. When the pollination season is over, Bragg disperses some of the hives to various areas of the province.
McKee sells honey from his roadside stand and at local farmers' markets. (Brian MacKay/CBC)
Since Bragg has such a large quantity of bees, it can't rely on wildflower nectar to feed them all.
McKee said Bragg is open-feeding its bees sugar water using barrels that any bees — including his — can access. The sugar water contaminates the honey, changing its taste and colour.
"I have an acquaintance who did not realize that Oxford's bees were so close and he had water-white honey … because it was basically sugar water. There was very little honey in it," McKee said. "It would have little taste — eating a boiled sweet."
Bees crawl in and out of one of McKee's hives. (Brian MacKay/CBC)
Bees prefer to consume nectar from flowers, but if the sugar water is more readily available, they'll eat that instead.
"They'll say it's not steak, it's hamburger, but it's OK," said McKee. "And that hive will then stop going out looking for other stuff and go to the sugar barrel because it's easy food."
There's a simple alternative to open-feeding sugar solution, McKee said. An inverted pail with sugar water can be placed directly on top of a hive, so only the bees from that hive can access the water.
McKee
shows how a pail feeder works. The opening is placed over a hole in the
top of the hive so bees from that hive can access the sugar water. (Brian MacKay/CBC)
But when McKee's wife, Helen Sheldon, spoke with the company about the couple's concerns, the company did not seem sympathetic, he said.
"They didn't want to talk to us. They said, no, sorry, this is what we're doing."
The CBC has contacted Bragg Lumber and Oxford Frozen Foods, but has not received a response.
Jars of McKee's honey sit for sale at his roadside stand. (Brian MacKay/CBC)
A spokesperson for the provincial Agriculture Department said sugar syrup can lighten the natural colours of honey and dilute its taste, resulting in "adulterated" or "impure" honey.
Sarah Levy MacLeod said for large-scale beekeepers, alternatives to open feeding can be costly.
"It would be a substantial investment for large-scale beekeepers to purchase individual hive feeders for hundreds or thousands of hives," she said in an emailed statement. "The labour and travel requirements to install, fill and re-fill individual hive feeders compared to open feeding are significant."
McKee has about 90 hives in various locations, and his bees produce up to 6,000 pounds of honey each year. (Brian MacKay/CBC)
McKee said most honey producers feed sugar water to their bees starting in late August or September, when fewer nectar sources are in bloom, but open-feeding sugar water so early is a concern.
"There's no laws that says they can do this or can't do that. It's very open and it all depends on everybody shaking hands and following a reasonable expectation, and Bragg is stepping outside that."
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54 Comments
Open feeding
• Beekeepers are not to provide bees with unrestricted access to open
containers of sugar syrup during the period May 15 to September 15.
Doing so presents an unacceptable risk of contaminating honey. ( https://nsbeekeepers.ca/cmsAdmin/uploads/nsba-updated-code-of-practice.pdf )
Bragg Lumber/Oxford Frozen Foods is being a bad neighbour. And lazy: if
we can tap a thousand maple trees at a time we can surely fill a hundred
closed feeders from a central point.
I trust Bragg/Oxford is not harvesting "honey" from these hives!
And how does someone with only 90 hives "disrupt an existing honey-producing balance"? Is there an over-population of bees in the area?
you are not a nice person ...
Newcomer, well ain't that sweet?
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http://davidamos.blogspot.com/2006/05/harper-and-bankers.html
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Harper and Bankers
Just DaveMay 10th, 2006
Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
Minister of Public Safety, Stockwell Day,
President of the Treasury Board, John Baird,
Ministers James Flaherty, and Vic Toews
C/o Bill Casey MP
103 Albion Street South,
Amherst, NS, B4H 2X2
Franky Boy McKenna, Deputy Chair,
John Bragg and John Thompson, Directors
Chris Montague Legal Counsel
C/o Jill Crosby, Bank Manager
TD Financial Group
620 Main Street
Sussex, NB, E4E 5L4
W. Geoffrey Beattie, Director
David Allgood, Legal Counsel,
C/o Sharon Armstrong, Bank Manager
Royal Bank of Canada
644 Main Street
Sussex, NB, E4E 7H9
John Manley PC, Director and
E. Jennifer Warren, Legal Counsel
C/o Maria Cormie, Bank Manager
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
761 Main St,
Moncton, NB. E1C 1E5
RE: Blowing the whistle on big banks and corrupt politicians too.
Hey,
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