h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Having just munched toast and honey,we got ontop the subject of bees.

Just how do they guarantee that the organic bees haven't rebelliously flown off to a nice non-organic field to get their pollen??? Do they tie them to a selection of organic blooms???

No guarantees. If they say they guarantee that no "polutants" are in the such products, they are lying. Ain't no such guarantee

Y.

The only thing they can do, is examine the honey, this way they will know if it's polluted or not.

I think they have to make sure that the hives are located within a certain radius of organic crops. Presumably they know how far bees will fly to get nectar?

Yes, they usually place them near the fields or forests they want the bees to collect the nectar, hence you have different sorts of honey, depending on which flowers or trees most of the nectar has been collected from .

Still like the idea of the odd rebellious one "going over the wire"!

There's probably a group of bees trying to break out, via a tunnel under a vaulting box, of course.

I talked to a guy who sold clover honey and some other sorts of honey. I was suprised that he actually closes the hives, puts in the back of a van and drives them a couple of hundred kilometres to a place where there is lots of clover. At a different time of year, he drives them to a different place for a different flavoured honey.

Oh dear, now I am imagining bees who don't get back to the hive before it's taken away again. Do they wander around wondering where their home has gone?

To paraphrase a Roy Orbison song .....

But there won’t bee many coming home
No, there won’t bee many coming home
Oh, there won’t bee many
Maybe ten out of twenty
But there won’t bee many coming home

There was some problem with GM products a while back. Something about underestimating how far bees will fly to get pollen. I can't remember the details, but I imagine it meant there would be cross pollenation between GM and standard plants. I suppose if you wanted organic honey, you would need to make sure all the plants were organic in a radius of how much a bee flies. Or do chemical analysis of the honey.

When I spent a summer in Greece, the locals used to sell "Tilos Honey", when in fact the beekeeper used to take his hives to Nissyros and let the inhabitants loose! The reasoning was the bees are from Tilos, so therefore the honey is from Tilos! Tasted lovely, whatever.....

I wonder if a few "alien" bees manged to make it between the two???