Colorful Honey Produced by French Bees Blamed on M&M's
Red, green, and blue batches of honey produced by bees in French apiaries are the fault of an M&M's processing plant down the road, keepers said today.
The bees have apparently been returning to their hives in and around the northeastern town of Ribeauville with residue from a nearby biogas plant that processes waste collected from a Mars plant where M&M's are produced.
A solution is now in the works, but it's too late for some of the regions 2,400 beekeepers who say the colorful honey is unsellable. "For me, it's not honey," said apiculturists' union president Alain Frieh of the substance which is said to taste like regular honey.
France, one of the European Union's largest honey manufacturers, is already reeling along with the rest of the world from an unyielding drop off in the number of bees.
Unless the apiarists can come up with a way to market the tinted honey as a "happy accident," it's going to be another long winter for the colonies.
