DonaldTrumpsFlaccidHairpiece
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Colored Ant Butts
So you probably saw this post a few days ago, about the ants who were colorized by the food they ate, but they are not the only ones effected by color.
Enter the bees
A few years ago, some beekeepers in France realized there was something wrong with the honey.
Mt Dew Hone
Instead of the rich amber or yellow colors usually found, they were finding green, blue, brown, or even near colorless honey coming from their hives.
Yum
The culprit? A Biogas production facility 2.5 miles away had M&M candy shell remnants stored in uncovered containers outside. Instead of going to nearby flowers, the bees were going to the free buffet of colored candy shells and using them.
The honey had to be discarded (wasn't up to company standards) and the candy shells were stored inside sealed containers inside from then on. Yet another interesting, if likely useless, interaction between nature and humans.
TarrisXanan
PIKMIN!
Velocyte
Reminds me of pikman
boogersweretasty
In my town a bunch of seagulls got stuck in a run-off container from a tofu plant. Had to get rescued and rehabbed.
Beckarific
Sometimes the colour also means it has come from poisonous flowers...
MrLee99
This is new
SirPelvisJohnwood
*affected
tooomanysteves
This sounds like BS. Bees feeding off candy instead of flowers?
therealestnigerian
#1 "Fire Ants Are Being Laced with Homosexual Chemtrails to Bite Christians And Convert Them To Homosexuality" - liberaldarkness AKA onionV2
zissou79
A lot of bees use the High Fructose Corn Syrup that is used in beverages. I wonder if that has any negative effects on honey production.
StTriniansHeadBoy
...but what did it *taste* like?
SPQAAE
You have to wonder the impact of bees not pollinating due to them ignoring the honey.
MrsDoomandGloom
There is a blue tinged honey from blue berries. http://www.thehoneybeestore.ca/Blueberry-Honey-Unpasteurized-Canada-p/123709.htm
Hargy89
I would LOVE to have a jar of that, just so I could say I did. I wonder if simply stirring in some food dye would achieve the same results..
CynicalDeino
When I was younger, my family left a box of honey Hall's outside. About a day later, it was swarmed with bees.
Homusubi
Altaroth are real, people. Keep an eye out for Jinouga just in case they're real too.
TheEmeraldProphylactic
"Effected by colour" - *vomits*
ChattingAtTheAqua
Affected* affect=verb, effect=noun. Source: 4th/5th Grade teacher.
DonaldTrumpsFlaccidHairpiece
Ty for the unrequested grammer lesson I will ignore because this is the internet and I don't proofread/care. Seriously.
ChattingAtTheAqua
You're so welcome!
JohnnyEnglishReborn
Now I want m&m honey
ifreezeredvines
Bravo Next.. why not explain why bees are unable to find the way back to there hives . ????. What inspired you to post that?
DonaldTrumpsFlaccidHairpiece
Uh, colors?
heinleinfan
I knew someone in NY who had this happen with cherries. The honey was disgusting. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/nyregion/30bigcity.html
Expiredjelly
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/03/how-bees-revealed-a-pot-farm-beneath-the-maraschino-cherries.html
biggwhytey
Hone Bes, y u do dis
servingmytimeinusersub
"A few years ago" = i saw this floating around online almost 20 years ago.
DonaldTrumpsFlaccidHairpiece
we're in 2032? The story is from 2012, and in fact, the picture of the guy holding the honey is dated October 5, 2012 from what I can find.
kakum31
BUT DID IT TASTE LIKE M&MS
DonaldTrumpsFlaccidHairpiece
Does honey taste like flowers? It probably tasted different than normal honey, but probably still like honey. Kinda like how bees using >
DonaldTrumpsFlaccidHairpiece
Clover flowers as their staple go-to tend to apparently make sweeter honey.
GnomeAndGarden
The article I found mentioned finding honey that tasted like Coca-Cola. The more unprocessed the honey, the more distinctive it's flavor, /1
GnomeAndGarden
as it will have more undigested pollen and nectar present. Since M&M shells are mostly sugar, any odd flavor would come from what /1
GnomeAndGarden
cornstarch, corn syrup, dextrin, and food coloring made it through the bees.
UnsettlingSoundComingFromBelow
Pikmin
FedEXguy
Why would they store the candy shell pieces outside? Why not package them up and sell them as ice cream toppings or something?
DonaldTrumpsFlaccidHairpiece
My guess is they were tainted in some way, perhaps coming from the floor of the manufacturer.
HumfreeBugart
Simple, much cheaper to dump them than cost of equipment and labour to recycle
heeeynow
Plus liability. Our company worked on the skittles plant. If we dropped debris onto a conveyer of packaged product it went into the trash
ChickenChickenBurningBright
I don't believe this. The honey would not be colored the way those images show unless the candy was only one color.
FellhuhnCom
As I recall it the interesting thing was: honey tainted, hives were moved. Bees still flew there as they were lazy. Interesting stuff over.
ElbowDeepInAHeadlessHorseman
Efficient. Few people consider bees to be lazy :p
Fr1edToast
Humans made it possible.
DonaldTrumpsFlaccidHairpiece
I'm going to assume M&Ms aren't made in random batches, but rather 1 color at a time, meaning piles of shells could all be 1 color
ChickenChickenBurningBright
How do you get a pile of shells? the shells are grown on the chocolate. you can't have just shells. Nothing about this story smells right.
DonaldTrumpsFlaccidHairpiece
Just for you, I went and watched https://youtu.be/79A1t7STh_8 and imma bet the "shells" were from the rotator drums with color in them >
DonaldTrumpsFlaccidHairpiece
After they are cleaned out. In other words, when the process is done for the day/week and it needs to be cleaned, you get piles of "shells"
ChickenChickenBurningBright
Grazie! And, to not come off as an ass, I found the original National Geographic article the images came from, which confirms the story.
ChickenChickenBurningBright
They don't explain any more detail, but according to the "how its made" video, you're likely right that its waste from the color drums.
GreedyWildcard
If a company (like a production facility) has enough candy shells laying around to result in this, is it a stretch that they'd be sorted?
ChickenChickenBurningBright
They don't ever have candy shells laying around. The shell is grown on the candy.
GreedyWildcard
*shrugs* guess the whole story's bullshit then.
ChickenChickenBurningBright
Naw, turns out it's true and I'm just a skeptical bastard.
GreedyWildcard
I would expect all M&M's of one color are produced in one large batch, not all colors produced on the same "line".
ThomasTheWankEnglne
Bees make honey and jelly? Why doesn't anything humans make taste good.
SquirrelGripper
Because we jelly. ;)
avervetmonkey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_milk#Comparison_to_other_milks they have a list there
HeebeejeebeeShampooSqueezee
*man sits on toilet looking sadly at floating poopie*
avervetmonkey
Uhh, technically, human milk contains more lactose than any of our other usual sources of milk. So, in theory that should be quite sweet.
SplendidoSplendente
Some people eat their own nails and snots. Maybe it's just a matter of taste.
avervetmonkey
https://delishably.com/dairy/An-Experiment-Comparing-Cows-Milk-to-Human-Milk I just found that page and had to share
GnomeAndGarden
Apparently, at least in some areas, honey like that, while safe, could not legally be sold as "honey" since it didn't all come from flowers.
Lucidacide
Thankfully !
andrewtater
Then market it as "Natural Sweetener" or something. Don't just toss it all...
andrewtater
Or sell it as honey in China, not like their quality control is up to par
heinleinfan
I don't believe most mass produced honey should be called "honey". Large commercial honey operations feed bees high fructose corn syrup all
GnomeAndGarden
The article I found sited regulation in Utah- no idea where else. I had tried to post the link but it disappeared, because imgur does that.
heinleinfan
year round to keep up production. How is that honey?
BronzeLeaguePro
You can't know for sure, but if you take pride in your work, you'll care.
TheRickestofMortys
So, I discovered that I have a very slight pollen allergy when I bought wildflower honey for the first time.
SlayTheMuff
That sucks,a lot of people's allergies are helped by eating local honey to build a tolerance
TheRickestofMortys
All it did was make my throat a bit itchy. It is, to my knowledge, my only allergy. So it's cool, I just stick to clover.
BranOfTheNorth
Honestly though, slight amounts of local wildflower honey over time could help you with your allergies! Food for though
BranOfTheNorth
Has to be local though, otherwise it's useless
ThisStupidUsernameIsAlreadyInUse
How tf could you tell for sure that any jar of honey came all from flowers? That a single bee didn't stop by someones drink, candy etc.?
Naggert
You can meassure it. Honey can be made from pure sugar, but it wouldn't be classified as honey, since it was made from sugar and not flowers
heinleinfan
You actually can't on this, other than looking for the pollen with a microscope. This is why the US won't let us label honey as 'organic'.
mortDX
TIL that the bee labor has nothing to so with whether or not it's organic... idk why I thought that but thanks LOL
hesaidsarcastically
They use people that work at cinemas to check every bee for drinks and candies that they brought in.
ThisStupidUsernameIsAlreadyInUse
Uh oh... didn't think of that. In that case, I believe all the honey is in fact from flowers.
ArtOfKarolMichalec
Does that actually happen? When I go to cinema in uk I always bring a bag of sweets and crisps and that and they just let me in
hesaidsarcastically
You're not a bee.
nihilistdad
You could examine the honey under a microscope. It contains pollen from the flowers.
oforce21o
of course it would contain pollen but it would also contain other stuff
MinorClarification
It's a percentage thing
Richarmeleon
Like butt stuff? Bee butt stuff?
kkus
Bee Movie 2
HaveGinWillBabble
I always upvote butt stuff.
sneakysneakysoysauce
No. There's standards. Like you know...
Twistysnacks
This isn't 'Nam. There are rules.
benmaister
It's actually really hard to test the honey. The manuka honey industry is rather subjective.
kkus
I wouldn't know. I haven't got any.
heinleinfan
You literally cannot control where bees forage, there could be "soda" in honey. But bees will generally go for natural sugar before fake.
sneakysneakysoysauce
No of course. You can't force the bees. But there's got to be over a certain percentage of good honey.
heinleinfan
Small scale keepers and organizations are pushing for all honey to be tested and only called honey with a certain pollen count.