strange coloured honey this year?

I'm sure I heard that story a year or two ago... Typical Daily Mail!

R2
ps. I have no connection with the Daily Mail and I am not French!

Oh! Dear . I just started a thread on this ( Source twitter )
VM

that reminds me must get a Geiger counter for our honey
in case our honey glows blue when you turn the lights out...

I will lent you one reminds me of Peckham spring water....I remember a similar tale being told to me by Frank Vernon in the 70s where there was a green honey that was minty....turned out to be local sweet factory I think in Southamption area!

Nic Rhodes said:

I will lent you one reminds me of Peckham spring water....I remember a similar tale being told to me by Frank Vernon in the 70s where there was a green honey that was minty....turned out to be local sweet factory I think in Southamption area!

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Radio 4 had reports of blue honey that is attributed to a factory making M&Ms dumping a batch of coloured syrup.

Margaret Elisabeth said:

Radio 4 had reports of blue honey that is attributed to a factory making M&Ms dumping a batch of coloured syrup.

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Yes, that is what the Daily Wail (link above) was referring to.
Pictures (in colour) on the BBC News channel.

The beeks are not being allowed to sell their coloured honey.

Bet they can't get near the hives either as the young bees will be hyper on the E numbers

Margaret Elisabeth said:

Radio 4 had reports of blue honey that is attributed to a factory making M&Ms dumping a batch of coloured syrup.

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It's on the web site as well,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19840555

Don't need to go to France for that!

My hives were full of multi coloured honey this year, red, green, yellow, every damn colour! My entire honey crop (as it was) from 12 hives was ruined.

There is a haulage company about half a mile away from my apiary who are transporting waste chocolate products from a local chocolate factory to an animal feeds processer.
The bees have found the skips parked round the back of the warehouse containing waste chocolates, areo bars and after eight mints and have brought the fondants back to the hives.
Extracted, the honey looks like liquid toffee with a faint taste of after eight.

Fed the last of it back to my bees yesterday and guess what, I get a phone call today from someone who was testing it for me to say that it contains a high proportion of lactose and advises me not to the feed it to the bees over winter.
Now how the hell do I get that lot out of my hives now?

Paul

paulgeoffrey said:

The bees have found the skips parked round the back of the warehouse containing waste chocolates, areo bars and after eight mints and have brought the fondants back to the hives.

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At least you know what it is. Are the warehouse now aware they will have to cover the skips? You are probably not the only beekeeping victim, is it well know locally? It does open the question of legal responsibility, especially if they refuse to do anything about it.

alanf said:

At least you know what it is. Are the warehouse now aware they will have to cover the skips? You are probably not the only beekeeping victim, is it well know locally? It does open the question of legal responsibility, especially if they refuse to do anything about it.

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Oh! don't get me going on that one.

I located the source. Some of the skips were quite new and 'bee proof' but there was a number of old skips with badly fitting lids and doors. These were inundated with bees and wasps.

Contacted NBU and local enviromental health informing them of possible contamination to my bees/honey and also possibly other beekeepers within flying distance.
NBU refered me to the foods testing department to test my honey. They quoted me between £400 and £500 per day and the full test would take around seven days. Ouch!
Enviromental health switchboard operator (thats as far as I could get!), after speaking to someone in the office claimed they hadn't come across this type of problem before but would log my complaint down and someone would look into it 'when they got round to it'.
After my association secretary intervened I got a call from the enviromental officer who agreed to visit the site.
He called back later that day to confirm it was chocolate waste. The company was aware of this problem as it has happened at a previous site but said they could not do anything about it other than spraying the skips with a pesticide. Enviromental health officer also claimed he could do nothing as, apparently, the company is not breaking any laws.
Got a call from our bee inspector who put the problem down to the poor forage this season forcing the bees to look elsewhere for nutrition.
( I can accept his reasoning as we all know it has been a particulally cr*p year in general)
He also added he was aware of another association with a similar problem involving a cough mixture factory ( at least their bees shouldn't catch cold this winter!)
My association secretary contacted the chocolate factory in question but got the run around, being transfered from one department to another.
So we didn't get very far at all.
I informed another local beekeeping association who have some members with bees in the area. These people were informed but, as yet, I do not know if anyone else has been affected.
I don't think I could fight this battle on my own so, if it persists, it looks as though I am going to have to look for another apiary site.
Bit of a sickener though as my present site is perfect for me just being a 100yds from my workshop makes it easy to visit my hives anytime I wish.

Ah well!, ces't la vie as they say.

Paul

It is frustrating that no government agency seems to want to help put a stop to your problem. My guess it that there will be other pollinating insects that will have been badly affected too.

Makes one kind of hope that something nasty ends up in thier chocolate, making it unsalable.