Sugar dilemmas for beekeepers and parents

They say “you are what you eat” and us beekeepers can dictate what the bees eat throughout the Winter.  I must admit to feeling slightly guilty to raiding the bees larder of honey and substituting it with sugar last Autumn, but it was the only way if I was going to get any honey in my first year.  This week, I have been forced to see the reality of how much food dictates well-being and maybe I need to be a more considerate when I harvest honey later this year.

This change of heart was actually ignited with my Wife’s breast-feeding.  Using the analogy again, if you are what you eat, my Wife is a veritable Sugar Monster.  She kicks off the day with either Coco-Pops or Sugar Puffs.  Then has a hot chocolate (on a bad day with marshmallows).  Then a Ginger Bread Man.  Then the left over chocolates from Christmas.  Topping off the evening with the half-price Ben & Jerry’s chocolate fudge ice cream.

In essence, she fulfills every Scottish, culinary stereotype.  Over the years I have resisted preaching to her over the lure of the more natural sweeteners you can get from healthy things such as honey.

But a conversation with a friend made me realise that what she was feeding herself was also feeding our baby and our baby might not be such a fan of the e-number diet as my Wife.  My friend’s Wife is an alternative therapist and understands that a lot of problems in children and adults are down to nutrition.

All the baby handbooks might have said that many new born babies are likely to be fussy, grisly and/or colicky but the dramatic change we saw when Heidi substituted the chocolates for meat and veg was dramatic.  Literally the next day we had a different baby.  From one that cried a lot, was wide awake all day and difficult to put to bed, to one that hardly cries, naps during the day, and goes to bed easily.

Just this one change has helped me regain my sanity enormously in the last few days.

This has made me think more about what impact sugar has on the bees.  The honey they have made for themselves from nectar has to be better than the sucrose I fed them in September.  This year I will do my best to leave them with sufficient honey and in the meantime, I am trying my best to resist biscuit watching my Wife.

For information, the book we are using to help raise our baby is called Your Baby Week By Week (USA Link) and we have found it to be excellent.

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Author: Roger

regaining my sanity through beekeeping

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