Peaches

[SgtMaj]

My wife and I drove out to a local beek's farm this weekend and picked about 30 lbs. of peaches this weekend.  When we were there, we saw some peaches with holes eaten into them, that were covered in bees.  At first it looked like the bees were actually eating the peaches, but then I realized what was really going on... June beetles were eating the peaches, but the honey bees would go behind them and lap up the juice.  I had to wonder if he was getting peach flavored honey from it.

PS - We made one heck of a good peach pie last night. 

[DrKurtG]

We just returned from South Carolina where we purchased a 1/2 bushel of peaches. We canned them with our honey, light syrup, and cinnamon. Really delicious!

[asprince]

Funny that you started a posted about peaches.....I was just thinking about starting one. I live in Peach County in the peach state, Georgia. Our peaches have been soooo good this year. Our season is just about to come to an end. I have been making lots of fresh peach ice cream. Now it's clear why I am such a THICK boy!

Steve   

[SgtMaj]

Peach ice cream... oh man, that sounds SOOO good. 

[bmacior]

Peach pie is a waste of perfectly good pie crust.  I do, however, make one occassionally for my husband.  I scoop out the peaches, put them on his slice of pie, and just eat the crust.  However if the bees drink the juice, peaches just might have a redeeming quality.

[Fannbee]

We have a bushel of pears.  My wife cans them.  Can we can them with honey?

[asprince]

I have pears, maybe I should try canning them with honey. Sounds good.

Steve

[dhood]

I had several watermelons rot in the field, about 10 or so. And threw them out towards the woods. A few days later I noticed hundreds of bees on the ones that split open. I think they are just getting the moisture from the fruit. I wouldn't think they would make honey out of fruit juice would they? I guess if I have any watermelon flavored honey I will know why.

[SgtMaj]

I wouldn't think they would make honey out of fruit juice would they?

Why not?  They make honey out of syrup, and fruit juice is just syrup.  Watermellon flavored honey... wonder what that would taste like.  I think peach flavored honey would be better.

[JoelinGA]

I was just about to start a thread on bees and fruit. My great aunt has a house next door to us, and she has a few plum trees along with a peach, pear and fig too. I noticed a few bees on plums that had fallen on the ground. But what blew me away was when I was walking past her fig tree. The buzz coming from it was so loud I thought for sure there was a swarm in it!

Anyway I check and instead of a swarm, every single fig on that tree was covered in bees, I'm pretty sure they were my girls, cause when I saw my aunt, she asked me if I had seen the tree. She said that tree had always been full of birds before getting the figs but not this year lol.

I never knew that bees went for fruit, I thought it was just flowers and such. Do they use the juices from the fruit for they honey production?

[AndersMNelson]

Bees prefer sucrose to fructose, so this might be explained by a dearth of nectar, I think.  Apparently (http://www.beesource.com/pov/usda/apidologie1978.htm), fructose possibly causes dysentery, so I would think if your bees developed dysentery, they have been feeding on fruit juice.

[SgtMaj]

Bees prefer sucrose to fructose, so this might be explained by a dearth of nectar, I think.  Apparently (http://www.beesource.com/pov/usda/apidologie1978.htm), fructose possibly causes dysentery, so I would think if your bees developed dysentery, they have been feeding on fruit juice.

That's too bad, I was totally going to try feeding nothing but peach juice to a hive to see what the honey came out like.