Winter Reading - The Honey Trail

I've been enjoying the book "The Honey Trail" by Grace Pundyk, an Australian author who traveled around the world looking for the source of the honey on our supermarket shelves. She has a way of taking you right along with her from the jungles of Borneo to a boardroom in China...it is fascinating informative reading. I had to stop reading now and then to give in to the feeling I should be joining her in a spoonful of honey or a cup of honey sweetened tea along the way.

A question was posted here about where I had learned that High Fructose Corn Syrup is bad for bees. HFC is spoken about in this book as a byproduct of GM or Genetically Modified mono crops, in this case Corn. The systemic pesticides in GM corn not only effects the honey bee that forages on it, but also carries over into HFC products. Commercial beekeepers routinely use HFC to feed bees. It is one of the highest probable causes of Honey Bee troubles. The largest colony losses are found in bees foraging on GM crops. Of course, there are many man made factors influencing the demise of honey bees around the world. I had no idea what big business Honey is. Pundyk does a great job of explaining it all to the honey lover in all of us.

The Honey Trail by Grace Pundyk