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  • From: cpearce AT mycosynthetix.com
  • To: "Thomas Grizzle" <griz AT mindspring.com>
  • Cc: 'OCBA' <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Re; honey vs syrup
  • Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:53:52 -0500 (EST)

Hi Tom and Annallys,

This is interesting.

The other side of the coin, i.e., natural compounds, is much less defined.
In the Journal of Natural Products (for which I’m an Associate Editor) we
publish roughly 400 peer-reviewed papers a year on plant and microbial
products, the vast majority having some biological activity. Very, very
few of the wealth of natural compounds that exist have been tested for
toxicity (or any other activity) in any system, including honey bees, for
a variety of reasons including that they haven't been catalogued yet.

Given that some of the most toxic compounds known are naturally-occurring,
you can’t assume that because something is natural then it’s ok. As Tom
has already pointed out, a number of our favorite plants are highly
poisonous (another example, the potent toxin ricin - used in a recent high
profile case, i.e., the murder of Georgi Markov in London –is from seeds
of Ricinus communis, which is grown everywhere in NC - does any member
know if ricin is found in the pollen?). The list goes on.

My point is that natural as well as synthetic chemicals should be treated
with caution until proven safe.

What’s this got to do with honey bees? Probably a lot. For example, I’ve
been bee-keeping since the early 1980s and the strongest colony I’ve ever
had, which last year was successfully split 4 times in the spring and
early summer, and yielded 50 pounds of excess honey, I managed to destroy
because someone told me it was ok to try formic acid - both a natural and
a synthetic product!- to treat mites.

The commercial bee-quality formic acid was obtained locally and used
exactly as the instructions stated, in what was still my strongest hive
(out of 12 – the remaining 11 got another chemical) – I could immediately
see the bees were not happy - within 7 days all were gone, and they are
now presumably living in the woods, having a good time without me
interfering with them.

I should have been more careful and listened to them.

BTW It’s great to see the level of interest in chemistry and bees. And I
still think the only problem with Food Lion's sugar is that it's too pure.

All the best,

Cedric.

Cedric Pearce.
OCBA member.

> Annallys,
>
>
>
> Your rather definitive sounding statement that "no research exists that
> addresses the synergistic effect of small doses of human manufactured
> chemicals." is just flat out incorrect. I am a toxicologist who has sat
> through numerous boring presentations with no noteworthy effects from
> these
> sorts of investigations. I have personally worked for the US Government's
> National Toxicology Program (NTP) on contract at RTI (in the RTP) for 10
> years of my career, from 1987 - 1997. Just at RTI there were many studies
> that investigated the potential for reproductive effects caused by low
> concentrations of (from memory, may be off a bit but basically..) a
> mixture
> fertilizer and a half-dozen or so pesticides. This work was conducted in
> mice and rats that I am aware of, but the NTP contracts with multiple labs
> (our tax dollars at work) and there were probably others. There were two
> mixtures, one we called IOWA and the other called CAL because they were
> designed to mimic actual conditions in these two states. Here's the
> reference if you want to know more.
>
>
>
> JJ Heindel, RE Chapin, DK Gulati, JD George, CJ Price, MC Marr, CB Myers,
> LH
> Barnes, PA Fail, TB Grizzle, BA Schwetz, and RSH Yang. Assessment of the
> reproductive and developmental toxicity of pesticide/fertilizer mixtures
> based on confirmed pesticide contamination in California and Iowa
> groundwater. Fundam. Appl. Toxicol. 22, 605-621 (1994).
>
>
>
> Tom
>
>
>
>
>
> From: annallys Goodwin-Landher [mailto:annallys AT hotmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 9:13 PM
> To: griz AT mindspring.com; OCBA
> Subject: RE: [ocba] Re; honey vs syrup
>
>
>
> Tom,
>
> I appreciate the time, effort and dedication it takes to assess risk.
> However, no research exists that addresses the synergistic effect of small
> doses of human manufactured chemicals on humans, bees, animals, and other
> life on this planet.
>
> There was a long period in the history of beekeeping where the assessed
> risk
> of using human manufactured chemicals on bees was considered negligible.
> The bee school I attended did teach about how the human manufactured
> chemicals are used and every single presenter related that it might be a
> good idea to use them as little as possible. This might just apply to our
> food sources and bee food sources.
>
> Regards,
>
> Annallys Goodwin-Landher
> PO Box 2744
> Chapel Hill, NC 27515
> 919 933-9109
> annallys AT hotmail.com
>
>
>
>
> _____
>
> From: griz AT mindspring.com
> To: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:13:16 -0500
> Subject: [ocba] Re; honey vs syrup
>
> 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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