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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Watson Bowes <wbowes AT gmail.com>
  • To: Thomas Grizzle <griz AT mindspring.com>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Re; honey vs syrup
  • Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:47:45 -0500

I appreciate Tom Grizzle's common-sense perspective on this matter.

Watty Bowes

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 7:13 PM, Thomas Grizzle <griz AT mindspring.com> wrote:

One of the things I do in my work is risk assessment.  Right or wrong, I look at the honey vs. syrup question a little differently than I’ve seen expressed thus far. 

 

1)      The actual risk you take by consuming honey with trace amounts of human manufactured chemicals (from sugar) is minuscule, vanishingly small, even if you sat down to a huge portion of honey.

2)      The actual risk you take by consuming honey with naturally occurring botulinum spores (often present in honey) is high enough that if you are a child (<1 year), due to differences in digestion that I don’t have a clue about, you can develop a serious toxicity eating honey (botulism poisoning).

3)      The actual risk you take by consuming honey that was made from naturally occurring blooming azaleas, rhododendrons, laurels, and probably many other plants is case by case, but can cause a type of intoxication and I hear even death on rare occasions.  If you are a healthy person, this is probably not a concern, but if you are old and/or have health issues, it could happen.  Moreover, these sorts of potential problems with “toxic honey” are much more likely to occur with hobby beekeepers than commercial honey.

4)      If you drive or ride in a car, there is something like a 100% chance that in your lifetime you will suffer a life threatening event, and yet many of us happily motor around, texting, radio on high, steering with our pinky finger, oblivious. 

5)      About the riskiest thing us men can do is to be unmarried! (shaves about 10 years off your life expectancy)

 

People are willing to assume huge risk if they feel they are the one in control, but even a tiny risk and no control = HUGE worry.  Worry first about things with actual high risk, and things way down the list (“tainted” sugar) are largely a waste of time and energy (and money).  If you use tobacco products or alcohol (both known human carcinogens), are a rock climber or a farmer and worry about honey contamination from sugar, well, you get the picture. 

 

My personal objective with beekeeping is the enhancement/maximization of pollination in my backyard nano-farm.  If you think about how much energy goes into growing sugar cane, then processing the sugar and shipping it NC, there is a lot of embodied energy (oil) in 5 pounds, many times more than the food value contained in the sugar itself.  I am new to beekeeping and am going to try to use as little sugar as possible, and if that means the bees get most of the honey, so be it.  I get the fruits and vegetables.

 

Anyway, just sayin’…

 

Tom Grizzle

Chapel Hill native


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--
Watson A. Bowes Jr., M.D.
Emeritus Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
211 Huntington Drive
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
919-929-3323



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