Solitary Bees and Bumblebees

There have been lots of unexpected consequences of getting involved in Farmer's Markets, one of which is that I now find myself on the Women's Institute of approved speakers.
Trying to sort out what to say I sort of stumbled upon solitary bees.Although no expert on them I have tried to build up some knowledge and a consequence of this is that Disappointing Opinion3 - 'I've read bees are dying' has formed.

There are lots of Bee Houses in Garden centres which are just a collection of different diameter tubes but I came across this:-

It is a very professional piece of kit and the manufacturers have the following video about their hive.

The field behind my garden is planted with wild flower seed which would make a great place for the hive. The farmer allows me to keep some of my bees in a copse behind the field so I expect he won't have a problem with it.
The man who produces it uses it as an educational tool and if things go OK I might be able to bring it to the Forest Centre with my honey bee hive.

Its on order.

I was in the garden this afternoon when I heard the buzz of a bumblebee going over head. I belong to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and had just got an email from them saying March is the time queens start looking for a nest.

The people who provide the solitary bee nest also do a bumblebee nest.

Its on order.

Just how stupid can people be? - Part Two

A couple of things coming from the previous blog.

Firstly, at the risk of sounding like a Monty Python sketch, there's not four, there's five things I dread.
They are, in no particular order:-
 - Manuka
 - the Flow Hive.
 - 'how can I help the bees?'
 - 'I've read bees are dying'
 - Honey and pregnancy
The reason I dread them is that often people find my opinion disappointing. I remember in particular talking to someone at The Forest Centre and he asked me my opinion of the Flow Hive. He was obviously very enthusiastic about them and when I told him my opinion he clearly found it very disappointing to the point where he became quite grumpy.
I'm tempted to do blogs on all four so when I'm asked about them I can simply say 'read the blog'

Secondly, when I saw the honey being sold for £83, I emailed the company pretending to be a potential customer:-

Hi, I've read some amazing things about Manuka honey and I'm really keen to try some.

I want to use the best I can and am interested in the 550+.but it is a bit more expensive than the other types. Is it more difficult to produce or more rare?

I would really appreciate your help with this. Thanks!

Their reply was :-

Thank you for your enquiry, Manuka Health MGO 550+ is 100% pure Manuka Honey straight from the breath taking landscapes of New Zealand.

Honey is well known to have a wide range of health benefits and Manuka Honey is particularly prized for its potency and purity.

The higher the MGO™ Manuka honey rating the higher the level of anti-bacterial activity in the honey therefore this is reflected in the price of the honey.

The final paragraph clearly illustrates a problem with Manuka honey. The price of Manuka has nothing to do with its rarity or additional processing just the random nature of its content.
The active ingredient methylgloxal [MG] comes from the nectar of the tea tree, or Manuka bush.
Therefore bees from the same apiary might forage on the Manuka bush in two areas, one with nectar with a high MG value and another with a low MG factor. The bee keeper will have little control over this and won't know the honey's 'potency and purity' until it has been tested.. Up to this point the cost of production is exactly the same for the two batches of honey.

Imagine the excitement of the bee keeper as he reads the test reports on the honey. A high MG and its off to Bodykind. A low one and its flogged to Rowse. Production, packaging and delivery costs will be exactly the same.
Its Manuka roulette!
Imagine the confusion if the batches are wrongly labelled. Tesco's will be selling £83 honey for £3.90 and Bodykind has sold £3.90 honey for £83.
I don't expect either set of customers would know the difference.

I have been asked if I am anti Manuka. I'm not.
If people like the taste and texture of the honey, and I have met people who do, then that's fine. Nothing to do with me.
If people want to spend money on a quality product and can afford it, obviously that's fine as well.
Its just I fail to understand why people should pay £83 for something that at the moment at least has no practical quantify able benefit.
From Bodykinds email it seems there isn't a supply and demand issue that could justify the higher price nor any manufacturing issues It seems to me  Bodykind and others are just creating a 'South Sea Bubble' and taking advantage of peoples gullibility. I'm not angry just disappointed. And disappointing.

Just how stupid can people be?

Some time ago I did a blog/rant about Manuka honey and the fact that Waitrose were selling it for £32 a jar.
A couple of days ago I stumbled across this.

£83 for a jar of honey. Bloody hell.

One of the many unexpected consequences of doing Farmer's Markets is that I have been forced into looking at aspects of bees and bee keeping that aren't really relevant to me. Bees have a 'back story' and at markets I am regularly asked about all sorts of things to do with bees.
There are 4 things I dread being asked about, one of which is Manuka honey. Initially I was vaguely aware of it but decided I needed to find out more and spent hours Googling.
To summarise a very long blog:-
 - it doesn't taste very nice, doesn't look very nice and its very jelly like and until it was discovered to be a 'super food', New Zealand bee keepers couldn't give it away, Most of it was put into cattle feed as a substitute for molasses.
 - a lot of Manuka honey isn't - its been blended and labelled as Manuka for the gullible - world wide consumption was five times the actual output of New Zealand.
 - its capable of extraordinary things. Allegedly.

There is plenty of evidence that highly medically refined and processed Manuka is effective in sterilising wounds and is used in hospital operations. A friend of mine had a hole in his shin through which you could see his shin bone. It wouldn't heal until they used the processed strips of Manuka honey on it.
However there were endless claims of what else it could do and there's seemingly nothing Manuka can't cure. Numerous sites like Bodykind, blogs written by what I would call 'health hippies', health and beauty sections of newspapers and magazines breathlessly extol the healing properties of Manuka, 'its a miracle food', 'has magical properties' etc etc.
Yet I couldn't find any actual scientific evidence for these claims. Not a thing. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
In fact quite the contrary:-

Evidence is limited on whether or not Manuka honey has any effect on conditions like high cholesterol;, diabetes, cancer,inflammation, eye, ear and sinus infections and gastrointestinal problems. [Boots the Chemist]

I also found what is probably the only recorded example of an NHS joke:-

Its best not to treat wounds with honey from the jar in your cupboard - not only due to the uncertain evidence we have, but also to avoid the risk of getting toast crumbs in your wound.

Yet despite this the urban myth of Manuka continues. Claims of cancer cures appear and there are endless references to the fact that Novak Djokovic and Gwyneth Paltrow are devotees of it.
I'm not sure why somebody who is quite good at hitting a ball with a bat is necessarily an expert on this and I have yet to see any scientific investigations carried out by the Djokovic Institute of Medical Research.
I also look forward to reading Gwyneth's definitive scientific paper 'Manuka: Why its good for my skin and makes me feel special' when it completes its final review by the BMA, Science Journal, and the research department of Hello magazine.
I think this shows the power of a placebo reaction.

All honey has antibacterial properties. ALL HONEY. This has been known for centuries and Roman soldiers put it on wounds [this was just before the NHS started]. This is mainly due to the presence of hydrogen peroxide in honey. Manuka has the unique ability to maintain this property in situations where the action of the hydrogen peroxide is blocked making it ideal for medical conditions, provided its heavily processed and purified.
In order to try and quantify this ability the NZ government introduced the UMF or Unique Manuka Factor, a complicated grading system to go on jars.
Nobody understood it.
The UMF mark had to be awarded by the NZ government and for Companies who don't have a UMF licence they were allowed to grade their honey on a self assessed grading known as the NPA, or Non Peroxide Activity.
Nobody understood it or knew the difference between the two systems.
Research has now identified methylgloxal as being the active ingredient in Manuka and so we now have a third grading system MGO or MG.
I expect nobody understands it but know the bigger the number the better.

Another widely used measurement of how effective it can be is the cost. I am of the opinion if somebody discovered a 'wonder food' with 'amazing medicinal benefits' and  'magical properties' and sold it for 10p a pint nobody would buy it. Sell it at £83 a jar and you'll be a millionaire.
I am contemplating putting some potting compost in my honey to give the dark earthy texture of Manuka, a teaspoon of creosote to give the oily taste of Manuka, a bit of gelatine to make it jelly like and selling it as ConYouHa!

I'll be a rich man as the stories roll in of how it cured baldness, in growing toenails, the inability to know which one is Ant and which one is Dec and the tendency to lose one's car keys.

And the myth isn't just being perpetrated at the Waitrose end of the market,  Rowse are cashing in by selling 'Supahoney' which proves Manuka doesn't appear to improve the ability to spell.
The advert talks about +5MG but the picture has +10 on the label and what on earth is a 'winter warmer'?

According to the official explanation of the MGO scale, +5 has 'Insignificant levels of activity'. Tesco's sell this stuff for £9.50 for which you get honey with an insignificant effect based on a scale that people don't understand and that has possibly been blended with crap honey like Rowse's basic honey.

The New Zealand government still struggles to control the Manuka bandwagon and are are suing two of the countries biggest providers for medicinal claims for the honey and the labelling they use, and words like 'Doctor' implying some health benefits.

 In court they claim

'a food could be described as "good", but not "good for you" if that was not scientifically proven.'

I have just completed the registration in the UK and EU of a cosmetic based on bee products. Part of the process is that I must maintain a document that, amongst other things, contains details of the scientific basis for any claims of health benefits on the tin or packaging.


I think I better stop this blog, I'm beginning to hyperventilate.
Perhaps I better have some Manuka, apparently its very good for hyperventilation. AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!