Holistic Approach to Colony Colapse Disorder

 

My name is Ori Ben-Shir and this summer I am conducting an experiment regarding the health of the Honey Bee. For too long has the bee been mistreated and it is time to realign ourselves to truly seeking a correct way for the honey bee to do her job while using her for our advantage. Colony Collapse Disorder is our agricultural industry and it is time to do something about it. My experiment will be looking at one aspect of the way that we interact with the honey bee. This is what we feed the bees. When we first receive nucs of honey bees we feed them sugar water to get this situated to their new conditions. Most syrup that are used to feed the bees is a 2:1 ratio of sugar to water. (Solids % 76.5-77.5 Moisture 22.5-23.5 Typical Fructose % 22.0 Dextrose % 27.0 Sucrose % 50.0 Maltose % .5 Higher Saccharides .5 pH 4.5-5.5) Why is it that feeding the bees we feed them a concoction that has absolutely no nutrition value at all. The sweet nectar that the bees valiantly fly to flower to flower contains nutritional value that they then produce into various substances. It has been shown that bees that only receive one type of nectar reduce their longevity because they are not receiving a plethora of nutrients. This reaction to food brings me to a conclusion that what we feed them is extremely important for their survival as well as fending off viruses and diseases. My experiment is one where i will be creating a holistic "tea" that has high antibiotic properties that can boost the immune system of any animal that drinks it. I will be using the mushrooms; Red belted polypore, Reishi, as well as certain herbs to create a tea. I will then mix it with the 1:1 ratio of sugar to water which will then be used to feed the bees. 

 

Though I am using sugar water for this experiment I believe that there are other options in feeding the bees, my second part of the experiment will be testing different types of nectars and naturally sweet liquids from nature to see if it can be interchanged with the usage of sugar water. My belief is using Maple sugar sap, agave, Coconut Palm Sugar and various sweet flowers and combining them to create a health food for the bees. This formula will replicate nectar that bees receive from flowers so that they may be able to use it to produce food in their colonies. this food will hopefully show an increase vitality in new or week hives because of the large amounts of nutrients.