from the March 2007 American Bee Journal

Q How Dry I Am

Dear Jerry, Is there any way to technically remove moisture from honey? What I have in mind is to heat the honey while continuously mixing it. To what temperature can I go without destroying the honey’s properties? Thanks for your many responses to my questions. Keep up the great work with the Classroom.

Sam Atsaides

Rhodes, Greece

Sam, yes there are several ways. As you know, keeping direct heat away from honey is a good thing as too much can darken honey and cause an increase in HMF. HMF is what the European Union looks for to assess honey quality. But yes, heat also makes the “air” be able to hold more moisture. That is why Brazil is more humid than Finland. There are several commercially available honey moisture-removing pieces of equipment. Most do not use heating directly, but use some type of dehumidifier to create an environment that causes moisture to condense on a cooler device then direct the water off. Air conditioning units do this. If you have ever seen the water drip out of a window air conditioner or the drain of a whole house unit, it is removing moisture from the surrounding air and environment. Keep your honey in such a room and either continuously stir or use some kind of trough arrangement to expose as much surface area as possible to this air and you can drop the moisture in it. Dadants has a clever commercial machine that puts the honey under vacuum to remove the moisture very quickly. The best method is to let the bees do it for relatively free and after extraction quickly bottle it, so it does not pick up ambient moisture.

Q Bees Collecting Nonpollen Materials

Hi, this has been my first year as a beekeeper. I have been interested in bees for a long time, but never got around to it. Let me start by saying that my bees are stupid (tongue firmly in cheek). Sometimes I think that the bee supplier saw me coming and said, “Hey, let’s get rid of some of those stupid bees that we’ve been trying to unload by giving them to this newbee. He’ll never know the difference.”

Now a question: Two weeks ago, we started observing the bees collecting corn dust and pieces from where cracked corn had been put out for the squirrels. Has anyone noticed this before? Is it good for them? Can it (corn meal or dust) be used as a pollen supplement? I’m thinking that this may be a factor in their collecting of an alternative food. I initially thought that they must not be my honey bees, but going up to the hives and watching, I saw them returning with the lumpy stuff in their pollen sacks and one actually carrying a chunk in its feet. Thank you for your column, I have been enjoying it.

Karl Newman

Ithaca NY

Karl, welcome to beekeeping. The first year is always the easiest, too. Beekeeping books, literature and your beekeeping buddy down the road are only 50% correct 50% of the time. Remember this. There is tremendous genetic diversity in the general honey bee population. That is why honey bees have survived for millions of years and why they may be around long after we have blown ourselves up.

Honey bees will collect various animal feed dusts in a break in cold winter weather when they can get to the feed trough or bird feeder. Yes, it is thought that they are taking it back to the colony to contribute to its nutritional needs. These probably do not possess the protein, vitamin and fat profile of pollen, but commercially available pollen substitutes do not either. However, the bees are instinctively bringing back the closest thing they can find that resembles pollen. Good thing they were not collecting a pesticide dust! You have learned a lot this past year. Now apply it to what you hope to have happen in 2007.

Q Late Drones

Hello, there are a lot of statements such as: “In the autumn the drones are evicted” or “Drones are killed by the workers in the autumn.” Are these statements still correct?

On Dec. 14, 2006 the temperature in Grahamsville, NY was unseasonably high and I saw two unusual situations for this period of time: flying Italian and Russian drones and winter eviction of drones. Some scenarios are possible:

1. Autumn supersedure impulse: Bee colony keeps drones for a new queen. During springtime an old or defective queen will lay eggs and then the bees will replace the queen.

2. Autumn queenless situation: Bee colony keeps drones with a purpose to resolve this situation during springtime. Bees will steal eggs from other hives or will kidnap a flying queen from another colony. But these two first scenarios do not explain the situation when bees evicted more than 200 drones from 5 hives on December 14, December 15 and December 18. Maybe bees resolved a queen problem during October and November.

3. A global warming: unusual autumn blooming of flowers (goldenrods, wild asters), due to the warmer temperature. As a result bees from five hives (!) may have changed their behavior.

What is your opinion about the above described situation? Thank you in advance.

Boris Romanov

Mr. Romanov, your observations and questions about drone eviction are good ones. Thank you. I am confident that there are one or possibly even two or three reasons for the drones you have bee seeing as of this date right before Christmas, 2006. Drones are a biological imperative for a colony of honey bees. Drones are the means to keep alive that genetic component of the queen laying the unfertilized egg to share with virgins as they venture into a drone congregation Area (DCA). Drones are important, but usually are first or second in removal or destruction when the colony is under stress because they are not strategically valuable enough to devote resources to retaining them under certain conditions.

At this time of year we have several things going on that tell these honey bees that it is time to consider colony changes. One of these is the shortening of days as fall and winter approach. Honey Bees respond to this change in day length by producing physiologically different workers that are designed to last through a long cold winter for several months. Different winter drones are not produced. Loss of consistent nectar and pollen sources is another change for the colony as winter approaches, either from the end of the flowering season or temperature restrictions that prohibit foraging by the colony. The colony’s genetic variability many times determines how aggressively they remove or cull out those individuals that are unimportant for overwintering. The drones will die eventually, even if not physically pulled out as the colony clusters to stay warm. The drones are not fed and succumb to cold temperatures as they are rotated out and excluded from the warmer regions of the cluster. Drones are expendable in the overwintering colony.

Now for your questions:

1. Unless there is pollen or nectar coming in, drones are too easily raised to keep them over winter. In the South drones are tolerated through winter as there is generally always a little something blooming. In Florida, we lose drones in the middle of summer, as it is so hot that this is when we have a lack of flowers and no resources available. Drones are dragged out and worker and drone eggs are eaten to conserve resources.

2. Bees do not move eggs around or kidnap queens. I think it was just time in your region for the ‘drag the drones’ impulse to engage.

3. If warming resulted in pollen and nectar sources, then drones would be tolerated longer. Honey Bees are highly adaptable and flexible survivors. They exist just about from one Pole to another and everywhere in-between. If it is warmer or colder in your area, they will respond accordingly without forethought because their species have been through other “global” warming and cooling periods, as this happens regularly according to the records, regardless of what the media says. They will be here long after we are gone.

Q Look Into Your Crystal Ball Please

There are so many disease problems in the beekeeping industry.

Tell me what is happening?

Robin Mountain

There is no one thing or one smoking gun on what is happening to the honey bees and the beekeeping industry. I think the problems are multiple and interconnected. Some are genetic, some are environmental, some are beekeeper-related and some are forced upon us from introduced pests, predators and diseases. Anytime you mix populations of species and their pests, predators and diseases, those populations either partially or totally collapse. We have those exact conditions here in the US. We have populations of honey bees from New Zealand, Australia, Russia, AHB from South America, Central America, Mexico, the southwest US and whatever queens that beekeepers have brought into the country illegally in their shirt pockets and the disease organisms, the predators, pests and the genetics that are now mixing. Add in miticides, antibiotics and environmental toxins and it is a wonder that honey bees are alive at all.

With cost of production of domestically produced wholesale honey twice as much as the price at the dock for some foreign honeys, who in their right mind would do this? If a person who wanted to go into the beekeeping business full time went to the bank to get a business loan, the banker would laugh at him. The interesting thing is that there will always be honey bees and their keepers. It will be those intelligent easily adaptable ones who will fill the niches and gaps for the demand for honey bees in agriculture, as a hobby and through commercial honey production. And, they will make money and be able to take care of their families. Will the industry look different 10 and 20 years down the line...I think so. What it will exactly look like I can only guess.

Q Mystery?

Dear Jerry, I am certain you will have an explanation for this rather unusual phenomenon. In front of one of my hives I see dozens of bees on the ground unable to fly. There are also many dead. What could this be?

R.Zacios.

I appreciate your confidence in my cyber ability to diagnose your “unusual phenomenon”. But, (there is always a ‘but’ isn’t there?) trying to diagnose some of the multi-variable problems of honey bees is tough. Here are some of our choices: 1. Pesticides that are sprayed on blooming crops that honey bees are foraging on. The bees get sprayed and those that do not die in the field come back to the colony and die, sometimes in the thousands. 2. Pesticides sprayed on a crop of weeds on the roadside or dandelions in your yard sometimes “poison” the pollen or nectar, which the bees feed on and bring back to the colony. When this food is fed on by the adults and fed to the larvae, they sometimes are affected and die. 3. Many times varroa can vector viruses, which cause some of the colony members to tremble outside of the hive and then die. Severe tracheal mite infestations also sometimes cause these symptoms. 4. If the beekeeper uses some of the varroa control products (miticides) improperly, it will have an effect on the colony like the above. 5. There are some pollens and nectars, which are toxic to honey bees and will act like a pesticide.

As you can see, we have several major choices or combinations of choices. Which one is correct for this time of the year is the question. My guess is some type of pesticide exposure in the 2.5-mile foraging range of the bees. Hopefully it won’t continue and cause more harm to your colony. Hang in there.

Q Pesky Wax Moths

Jerry, I always turn to Classroom first when I get my ABJ. There is always something to learn from and it’s interesting to know I am not alone. Through my own negligence, a hive absconded and I did not recover the comb before wax moths made a mess. If I pick that comb clean of larvae, pupae and web, can I put that comb into a strong hive and recover the comb? Should I just melt that comb down? Or, is there something else that needs done with it? Thanks.

Don Anderson

It depends on how much they have destroyed, Don. If they have absolutely eaten, webbed, and generally made a mess of the whole thing, start over. If they have a good start, but there is a majority of comb left, I’d salvage the comb as you suggest by putting it in a strong colony to protect the remaining comb and repair it. You can put the frames in a plastic trash bag and put it in your freezer at home to kill the larvae and give the strong colony a head start. It’s amazing how fast wax moths and SHB can get started, causing a problem. The beekeeper sometimes loses and sometimes wins. Keep your eyes open!

Q Weak Plus Strong =?

Hello Jerry, I am thinking of combining a weak hive into a strong hive, but with some degree of caution. The weaker hive appears to be queenless, there is an abundance of drone cells and I could not find the queen, suspecting a laying worker. I had introduced a new queen on 8 August, 06, as I thought that this hive was queenless, but could not find her on a recent check, although initially marked. What is likely to happen if a laying worker was introduced with the rest of bees into a strong hive? I plan to use the paper method above the queen excluder of the strong established hive that is doing well. Appreciate your response.

Len Khan W.P.B

Len, go ahead with your combination, but let me make a suggestion if you can pull it off. Laying workers are pretending to be queens and as such are a little bit heavier with eggs and have difficulty flying. Take the weak hive at least 100 yards away from where it is now and knock, dump and brush all the bees out. The normal workers can still fly and make it back home. The laying workers generally can’t, but sometimes still do, as Dr. Wyatt Mangum has shown in his research. Now combine the two colonies. Generally, the worker bees from the queen-right strong colony will either kill the laying workers in the weak hive or inhibit their egg laying.

Check your combined hive in a couple weeks to make sure it is queen-right.

Q Sticky Questions

I enjoy reading the “Classroom” in ABJ. I have a few questions. What are the human uses/benefits for propolis? Can you use the plastic propolis traps in place of the inner cover to collect propolis during the honey flow? What is the best time of the year to collect propolis if not during the honey flow? Where do I go to find more information on collecting/using and selling propolis? Why don’t more beekeepers collect propolis? What is the average amount of propolis collected from one hive during the year? Thank you for your help.

Tony Hubbard

Good questions, Tony. Propolis is the sticky tree saps, gums, and resins collected by honey bees to seal up cracks and crevices in the hive, coat the wooden hive surfaces and even the insides of cells before re-use. Depending on the tree, bush, flower, leaf or plant the “propolis” will have varying degrees of antibacterial and antifungal properties. The most research on its uses and benefits has been done by the Eastern Europeans. In the old Soviet Union days it was called the poor man’s penicillin. It can be found in specialty products like toothpaste with propolis, mouthwashes, gargles, wound dressings, etc.

Activity, which is documented, varies of course with the plant source from which it comes. Propolis can be gathered at any time of year, but is collected most abundantly in the late summer and fall of the year as the colony seals itself up for winter. Some races or strains collect and use more than others. I would do a search on the web using the word propolis, which will give you thousands of possibilities.

Most beekeepers don’t collect propolis, probably because it takes additional time, labor and equipment for an unsure and often poor U.S. market. This product could be a marketer’s dream because it is so underexposed. However, making unjustified claims for it healthful benefits will cause an eventual sales backlash. Stick with the documented facts!

Just like honey, propolis production will depend on the strength of the colony, its genetic propensity to collect propolis (Caucasian bees love to plug their hives with it.) and the plants that are offering it. Take the ball and run with it Tony. The market is still wide open.


	The Classroom by Jerry Hayes Please send your questions to Jerry Hayes, 17505 NW Hwy 335, Williston, FL 32696 Email: gwhayes54@yahoo.com

		from the March 2007 American Bee Journal Q How Dry I Am Dear Jerry, Is there any way to technically remove moisture from honey? What I have in mind is to heat the honey while continuously mixing it. To what temperature can I go without destroying the honey’s properties? Thanks for your many responses to my questions. Keep up the great work with the Classroom. Sam Atsaides Rhodes, Greece A Sam, yes there are several ways. As you know, keeping direct heat away from honey is a good thing as too much can darken honey and cause an increase in HMF. HMF is what the European Union looks for to assess honey quality. But yes, heat also makes the “air” be able to hold more moisture. That is why Brazil is more humid than Finland. There are several commercially available honey moisture-removing pieces of equipment. Most do not use heating directly, but use some type of dehumidifier to create an environment that causes moisture to condense on a cooler device then direct the water off. Air conditioning units do this. If you have ever seen the water drip out of a window air conditioner or the drain of a whole house unit, it is removing moisture from the surrounding air and environment. Keep your honey in such a room and either continuously stir or use some kind of trough arrangement to expose as much surface area as possible to this air and you can drop the moisture in it. Dadants has a clever commercial machine that puts the honey under vacuum to remove the moisture very quickly. The best method is to let the bees do it for relatively free and after extraction quickly bottle it, so it does not pick up ambient moisture. Q Bees Collecting Nonpollen Materials Hi, this has been my first year as a beekeeper. I have been interested in bees for a long time, but never got around to it. Let me start by saying that my bees are stupid (tongue firmly in cheek). Sometimes I think that the bee supplier saw me coming and said, “Hey, let’s get rid of some of those stupid bees that we’ve been trying to unload by giving them to this newbee. He’ll never know the difference.” Now a question: Two weeks ago, we started observing the bees collecting corn dust and pieces from where cracked corn had been put out for the squirrels. Has anyone noticed this before? Is it good for them? Can it (corn meal or dust) be used as a pollen supplement? I’m thinking that this may be a factor in their collecting of an alternative food. I initially thought that they must not be my honey bees, but going up to the hives and watching, I saw them returning with the lumpy stuff in their pollen sacks and one actually carrying a chunk in its feet. Thank you for your column, I have been enjoying it. Karl Newman Ithaca NY A Karl, welcome to beekeeping. The first year is always the easiest, too. Beekeeping books, literature and your beekeeping buddy down the road are only 50% correct 50% of the time. Remember this. There is tremendous genetic diversity in the general honey bee population. That is why honey bees have survived for millions of years and why they may be around long after we have blown ourselves up. Honey bees will collect various animal feed dusts in a break in cold winter weather when they can get to the feed trough or bird feeder. Yes, it is thought that they are taking it back to the colony to contribute to its nutritional needs. These probably do not possess the protein, vitamin and fat profile of pollen, but commercially available pollen substitutes do not either. However, the bees are instinctively bringing back the closest thing they can find that resembles pollen. Good thing they were not collecting a pesticide dust! You have learned a lot this past year. Now apply it to what you hope to have happen in 2007. Q Late Drones Hello, there are a lot of statements such as: “In the autumn the drones are evicted” or “Drones are killed by the workers in the autumn.” Are these statements still correct? On Dec. 14, 2006 the temperature in Grahamsville, NY was unseasonably high and I saw two unusual situations for this period of time: flying Italian and Russian drones and winter eviction of drones. Some scenarios are possible: 1. Autumn supersedure impulse: Bee colony keeps drones for a new queen. During springtime an old or defective queen will lay eggs and then the bees will replace the queen. 2. Autumn queenless situation: Bee colony keeps drones with a purpose to resolve this situation during springtime. Bees will steal eggs from other hives or will kidnap a flying queen from another colony. But these two first scenarios do not explain the situation when bees evicted more than 200 drones from 5 hives on December 14, December 15 and December 18. Maybe bees resolved a queen problem during October and November. 3. A global warming: unusual autumn blooming of flowers (goldenrods, wild asters), due to the warmer temperature. As a result bees from five hives (!) may have changed their behavior. What is your opinion about the above described situation? Thank you in advance. Boris Romanov A Mr. Romanov, your observations and questions about drone eviction are good ones. Thank you. I am confident that there are one or possibly even two or three reasons for the drones you have bee seeing as of this date right before Christmas, 2006. Drones are a biological imperative for a colony of honey bees. Drones are the means to keep alive that genetic component of the queen laying the unfertilized egg to share with virgins as they venture into a drone congregation Area (DCA). Drones are important, but usually are first or second in removal or destruction when the colony is under stress because they are not strategically valuable enough to devote resources to retaining them under certain conditions. At this time of year we have several things going on that tell these honey bees that it is time to consider colony changes. One of these is the shortening of days as fall and winter approach. Honey Bees respond to this change in day length by producing physiologically different workers that are designed to last through a long cold winter for several months. Different winter drones are not produced. Loss of consistent nectar and pollen sources is another change for the colony as winter approaches, either from the end of the flowering season or temperature restrictions that prohibit foraging by the colony. The colony’s genetic variability many times determines how aggressively they remove or cull out those individuals that are unimportant for overwintering. The drones will die eventually, even if not physically pulled out as the colony clusters to stay warm. The drones are not fed and succumb to cold temperatures as they are rotated out and excluded from the warmer regions of the cluster. Drones are expendable in the overwintering colony. Now for your questions: 1. Unless there is pollen or nectar coming in, drones are too easily raised to keep them over winter. In the South drones are tolerated through winter as there is generally always a little something blooming. In Florida, we lose drones in the middle of summer, as it is so hot that this is when we have a lack of flowers and no resources available. Drones are dragged out and worker and drone eggs are eaten to conserve resources. 2. Bees do not move eggs around or kidnap queens. I think it was just time in your region for the ‘drag the drones’ impulse to engage. 3. If warming resulted in pollen and nectar sources, then drones would be tolerated longer. Honey Bees are highly adaptable and flexible survivors. They exist just about from one Pole to another and everywhere in-between. If it is warmer or colder in your area, they will respond accordingly without forethought because their species have been through other “global” warming and cooling periods, as this happens regularly according to the records, regardless of what the media says. They will be here long after we are gone. Q Look Into Your Crystal Ball Please There are so many disease problems in the beekeeping industry. Tell me what is happening? Robin Mountain A There is no one thing or one smoking gun on what is happening to the honey bees and the beekeeping industry. I think the problems are multiple and interconnected. Some are genetic, some are environmental, some are beekeeper-related and some are forced upon us from introduced pests, predators and diseases. Anytime you mix populations of species and their pests, predators and diseases, those populations either partially or totally collapse. We have those exact conditions here in the US. We have populations of honey bees from New Zealand, Australia, Russia, AHB from South America, Central America, Mexico, the southwest US and whatever queens that beekeepers have brought into the country illegally in their shirt pockets and the disease organisms, the predators, pests and the genetics that are now mixing. Add in miticides, antibiotics and environmental toxins and it is a wonder that honey bees are alive at all. With cost of production of domestically produced wholesale honey twice as much as the price at the dock for some foreign honeys, who in their right mind would do this? If a person who wanted to go into the beekeeping business full time went to the bank to get a business loan, the banker would laugh at him. The interesting thing is that there will always be honey bees and their keepers. It will be those intelligent easily adaptable ones who will fill the niches and gaps for the demand for honey bees in agriculture, as a hobby and through commercial honey production. And, they will make money and be able to take care of their families. Will the industry look different 10 and 20 years down the line...I think so. What it will exactly look like I can only guess. Q Mystery? Dear Jerry, I am certain you will have an explanation for this rather unusual phenomenon. In front of one of my hives I see dozens of bees on the ground unable to fly. There are also many dead. What could this be? R.Zacios. A I appreciate your confidence in my cyber ability to diagnose your “unusual phenomenon”. But, (there is always a ‘but’ isn’t there?) trying to diagnose some of the multi-variable problems of honey bees is tough. Here are some of our choices: 1. Pesticides that are sprayed on blooming crops that honey bees are foraging on. The bees get sprayed and those that do not die in the field come back to the colony and die, sometimes in the thousands. 2. Pesticides sprayed on a crop of weeds on the roadside or dandelions in your yard sometimes “poison” the pollen or nectar, which the bees feed on and bring back to the colony. When this food is fed on by the adults and fed to the larvae, they sometimes are affected and die. 3. Many times varroa can vector viruses, which cause some of the colony members to tremble outside of the hive and then die. Severe tracheal mite infestations also sometimes cause these symptoms. 4. If the beekeeper uses some of the varroa control products (miticides) improperly, it will have an effect on the colony like the above. 5. There are some pollens and nectars, which are toxic to honey bees and will act like a pesticide. As you can see, we have several major choices or combinations of choices. Which one is correct for this time of the year is the question. My guess is some type of pesticide exposure in the 2.5-mile foraging range of the bees. Hopefully it won’t continue and cause more harm to your colony. Hang in there. Q Pesky Wax Moths Jerry, I always turn to Classroom first when I get my ABJ. There is always something to learn from and it’s interesting to know I am not alone. Through my own negligence, a hive absconded and I did not recover the comb before wax moths made a mess. If I pick that comb clean of larvae, pupae and web, can I put that comb into a strong hive and recover the comb? Should I just melt that comb down? Or, is there something else that needs done with it? Thanks. Don Anderson A It depends on how much they have destroyed, Don. If they have absolutely eaten, webbed, and generally made a mess of the whole thing, start over. If they have a good start, but there is a majority of comb left, I’d salvage the comb as you suggest by putting it in a strong colony to protect the remaining comb and repair it. You can put the frames in a plastic trash bag and put it in your freezer at home to kill the larvae and give the strong colony a head start. It’s amazing how fast wax moths and SHB can get started, causing a problem. The beekeeper sometimes loses and sometimes wins. Keep your eyes open! Q Weak Plus Strong =? Hello Jerry, I am thinking of combining a weak hive into a strong hive, but with some degree of caution. The weaker hive appears to be queenless, there is an abundance of drone cells and I could not find the queen, suspecting a laying worker. I had introduced a new queen on 8 August, 06, as I thought that this hive was queenless, but could not find her on a recent check, although initially marked. What is likely to happen if a laying worker was introduced with the rest of bees into a strong hive? I plan to use the paper method above the queen excluder of the strong established hive that is doing well. Appreciate your response. Len Khan W.P.B A Len, go ahead with your combination, but let me make a suggestion if you can pull it off. Laying workers are pretending to be queens and as such are a little bit heavier with eggs and have difficulty flying. Take the weak hive at least 100 yards away from where it is now and knock, dump and brush all the bees out. The normal workers can still fly and make it back home. The laying workers generally can’t, but sometimes still do, as Dr. Wyatt Mangum has shown in his research. Now combine the two colonies. Generally, the worker bees from the queen-right strong colony will either kill the laying workers in the weak hive or inhibit their egg laying. Check your combined hive in a couple weeks to make sure it is queen-right. Q Sticky Questions I enjoy reading the “Classroom” in ABJ. I have a few questions. What are the human uses/benefits for propolis? Can you use the plastic propolis traps in place of the inner cover to collect propolis during the honey flow? What is the best time of the year to collect propolis if not during the honey flow? Where do I go to find more information on collecting/using and selling propolis? Why don’t more beekeepers collect propolis? What is the average amount of propolis collected from one hive during the year? Thank you for your help. Tony Hubbard A Good questions, Tony. Propolis is the sticky tree saps, gums, and resins collected by honey bees to seal up cracks and crevices in the hive, coat the wooden hive surfaces and even the insides of cells before re-use. Depending on the tree, bush, flower, leaf or plant the “propolis” will have varying degrees of antibacterial and antifungal properties. The most research on its uses and benefits has been done by the Eastern Europeans. In the old Soviet Union days it was called the poor man’s penicillin. It can be found in specialty products like toothpaste with propolis, mouthwashes, gargles, wound dressings, etc. Activity, which is documented, varies of course with the plant source from which it comes. Propolis can be gathered at any time of year, but is collected most abundantly in the late summer and fall of the year as the colony seals itself up for winter. Some races or strains collect and use more than others. I would do a search on the web using the word propolis, which will give you thousands of possibilities. Most beekeepers don’t collect propolis, probably because it takes additional time, labor and equipment for an unsure and often poor U.S. market. This product could be a marketer’s dream because it is so underexposed. However, making unjustified claims for it healthful benefits will cause an eventual sales backlash. Stick with the documented facts! Just like honey, propolis production will depend on the strength of the colony, its genetic propensity to collect propolis (Caucasian bees love to plug their hives with it.) and the plants that are offering it. Take the ball and run with it Tony. The market is still wide open.

		Next Page Back ABJ Home