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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: rjarnts AT att.net, 'Orange Co Beekeepers' <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] help with feeding
  • Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2015 14:04:53 -0400

Jeanne,

I'm glad you separated the question into two parts ("Will a strong colony benefit from a candy board or pollen feeding?"). The answer is different for the candy (sugar) versus pollen/protein.

A pure sugar candy board (without pollen or pollen substitute) is just one of many ways to get sugar into the hive. Candy boards and fondant boards are popular in the North where they get extremely cold and very long winters. Syrup feeding, either sugar syrup made from 100% granulated sucrose or High Fructose Corn Syrup, which is already liquid, works perfectly fine and are used by commercial beekeepers and most hobby beekeepers. A candy board may or may not be more convenient for you but it isn't any better or worse for the bees, for the most part.

Sugar, in whatever form, must be constantly available to the bees or they will starve to death. If you've had a good nectar flow this fall, your hives may be full of honey and you don't need to add any sugar whatsoever -- hurray! Monitor the hive weight periodically by lifting from the back to ensure that they remain heavy. If your hives are light, then you must feed if your goal is to have live bees. It is much better to do that now, before cool weather sets in, but you must do what you must do, even if that means feeding all through the winter. Once your hives are heavy again you can stop feeding but continue monitoring. There is no benefit to feeding via candy boards if your hives already have ample honey/sugar stores -- the candy board simply serves as a huge dehydrated honey frame in the attic (note that it must be re-hydrated by the bees to about 50% moisture before they can digest it).

The discussion above assumes the candy board is pure sugar and does NOT contain protein (pollen or pollen substitute). The candy boards that are sold locally include pollen substitute. I had thought that there would be a pollen-free version offered but I haven't heard any more about that.

The benefit of the candy board plus protein, apart from the sugar, is ... the protein. Protein is necessary for, and stimulates, brood production. In our area, there is typically adequate protein from trees and flowers during the normal "bee season". The beekeepers should assess the amount of pollen in the hive just as he/she does the amount of honey. Even without opening the hive, you can watch returning foragers to see that they are bringing in loaded pollen baskets. Around here, there is an initial explosion of pollen around late January through February from the maples. The bees can't always get to it -- some days aren't warm enough for foraging (highs in the low/mid 50s) although many days are. Bee populations often boom at this time due to all this natural pollen which creates a major problem with early-season swarms and starvation (see article <here>).

Master Beekeeper Todd Walker says that he only feeds protein, if needed by a hive, during the times when it would otherwise be available "in the world" to the bees.

Most hobby beekeepers around here do not have a need to artificially jazz up their bee populations before the main honey flow starts on April 15th. It takes 3 weeks to make a worker bee from egg to emergence, and another two weeks or so for the worker to progress to foraging. So if we have lots of eggs the first few weeks of March, we will have lots of foragers in mid April. Everything tends to work out without assistance, which is why bees have been around for millions of years longer than humans.

BUT -- some people do want/need lots of bees earlier than the rest of us. If you are pollinating early-season crops (e.g. blueberries, strawberries) you may need lots of early bees. Or if you are going make splits in order to sell nucs, you'll want lots of early bees too. Or you may want a mega-force on hand for the main flow and are willing to put in a whole lot of effort to make it happen. If this is your strategy, you'll want to start feeding protein AND sugar beginning in January. You'll have to carefully control swarming and be very vigilant to prevent starvation. The enhanced population will not be able to support itself on the local pollen and nectar so early in the year so you'll need to maintain feeding. Note that if you create a huge population of eggs and larva and then the pollen supply stops, the bees will cannibalize the brood in order to make up the deficit.

So the answer to your question, "Will a strong colony benefit from a candy board or pollen feeding?", ultimately depends on what you are trying to accomplish. In my opinion, protein feeding in the fall or early winter doesn't make a lot of sense for people with the same goals as me (focused on honey production). It can make sense starting in mid/late January if you have special needs/goals.

We are very fortunate to have a local bee supply house that offers options for beekeepers with a wide variety of goals. But keep in mind that bee management strategies aren't like socks -- they aren't one size fits all.

Randall





On 10/12/2015 10:57 AM, rjarnts AT att.net wrote:

Randall (and anyone else who cares to reply), If a candy board/pollen feeding is not helpful for a weak colony because it may produce brood the colony is unable to support through winter, when is it helpful to the colony to use a candy board? I have a very strong colony (lots of bees, good brood, and lots  of honey) and would like to keep them that way over the winter.  Per my awesome mentor (David Langham) there are very adequate honey stores to feed through the winter.  Will a strong colony benefit from a candy board or pollen feeding?  Thanks for considering this question.  Jeanne

 

From: ocba [mailto:ocba-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Randall Austin
Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2015 3:00 PM
To: Joan Kalnitsky; Orange Co Beekeepers
Subject: Re: [ocba] help with feeding

 

Joan,

The article <here> answers a lot of questions about feeding.

In my opinion, it is too late in the year to try to significantly boost a colony's population by feeding protein (pollen or pollen substitute). All that extra brood will freeze to death because there aren't enough nurse bees to cover them.

It is not a bad thing to not have much brood right now, as long as you have a sufficient number of bees to form an adequate winter cluster. A well-behaved queen will be slowing down egg-laying significantly as we approach winter.

How many bees are in the weak hive -- how many frames are covered with bees? You may have plenty enough. You shouldn't have nearly as many as a strong spring hive. But if you think the colony is a lost cause, combining this hive with the other one is a good plan, as described in the article <here>. Or if the other hive is really strong and the weak one isn't too weak, you could swap a frame of capped brood and/or shake a few frames of bees from the strong one to the weak one. There's no point in throwing good resources after bad, but if just a bit of a boost would make all the difference between success and failure then this would be a good approach.

Randall

On 10/11/2015 2:27 PM, Joan Kalnitsky wrote:

We are first year bee keepers with 2 hives.  One is doing great and has from the beginning.  The other went queenless for a wile back in August.  Just as we were giving up hope we saw we had a new queen and things looked good.  Two weeks later we peeked in and things were progressing well.  We have not been able to get into our hives for some time due to travel, family and weather and peeked in today.  The hive that has had the issues once again is looking very week.  There are lots of stores, very little brood, but we did see the queen.
  We are wondering if we should feed and if so should we feed syrup water or protein?
  If we start feeding now will we have to do so through the winter.  At last weeks meeting we heard all about the candy board, is this an opportunity to use it?
  Thanks in advance for your help.
  Joan and Korinn




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