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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com>, Katja Sage <katjasage AT yahoo.com>, "ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>, Mark Smith <mgeesmith AT juno.com>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] All That Sugar Syrup!
  • Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 10:56:35 -0400

John/Katja/Walter/Mark,

For a brand new hive, we feed to accomplish 2 goals:
1) Bees require a nectar flow, either real or artificial (from syrup), to fuel the metabolism that creates wax. So feeding or a strong natural flow is necessary for them to draw out comb. Without comb, they don't have any place to raise brood or store food for the winter. But once you have the equivalent of 2 deep boxes full of drawn comb, you can check off this requirement as completed.
2) Bees obviously need stored food to survive through the dry summer months and the winter months. So we feed so the bees can fill their pantry. When they have done so, you can also check off this requirement as completed.

The next question with respect to point #2 is "when have the bees filled their pantry?" Hopefully you feed your human children "enough" but when they bust out of their clothes and can't waddle through the door, you've over-done it. Same with the bees. The hive should always have a few empty frames of drawn comb so that the queen has a place to lay. Entire frames don't have to be empty, but overall there should be plenty of space for new eggs. In the spring, if the queen doesn't have laying space, the hive will likely swarm. This time of year (the summer), no laying space will mean that the population will decrease, creating a risky situation as we go into fall. Also, the pheromones produced by larvae have very important colony-regulation roles so a shortage of brood can create all sorts of colony-stability issues.

So, at this time of year, I like my hives to be very heavy with stores, maybe one deep mostly full of stored honey and one deep half full of brood and half empty. That situation should serve well until the fall mini-nectar flow starts around September (goldenrod and asters).

Whatever your situation with stores today, monitor the colony's stores periodically and feed later if necessary. It would be a shame for your hive that's nice and fat in early July to be dead from starvation in late August. A couple of hundred pounds of sugar (much more than you'll need) is still cheaper than a package or a nuc. If you keep your hive alive and robust through to next year and harvest the state average of around 50 pounds of honey per hive, you can easily sell that honey for $500 ($10/pound). That's not a bad return on investment, especially for a hobby.

50 pound bags of sugar from Costco or Sam's Club seem to be about the best price per pound around here, but please share sources and costs. Note that one Food Lion or WalMart may charge a different price than another in the same chain, which is a bit frustrating when we are trying to find the best deals.

To make syrup, I boil water on the stove, remove from heat and then mix with the sugar. Don't ever boil the actual sugar syrup. To build up food in the pantry, make it as thick as the water will hold. 2 to 1 is about the saturation limit. If you can't get that to dissolve, make it a little thinner. Natural nectar varies considerably from flower source to flower source, so there is no magic number that you must meet. Supposedly the "typical" natural bee-desirable nectar is about 25 to 50% sugar, but thicker syrup is obviously easier/quicker for the bees to dehydrate.

Randall Austin


On 7/11/2014 8:10 PM, John Rintoul wrote:
4D2AB86A-FC88-427B-ABAF-84EECF3109C2 AT icloud.com" type="cite"> I was just thinking about asking the same question. I have a strong hive where I’ve added a second brood box. The bees are rapidly drawing out the foundation and the queen is laying in both the lower and the upper brood box. They are going through a gallon of syrup in 2 days. Even at WalMart prices (25# at $11.50) I’m wondering if they are going to slow down anytime soon. When does the fall nectar flow start? Should I stop feeding then? 

My second hive is weaker and I have no problem supplementing their feed. But a strong, productive hive would not seem to need syrup once they have drawn out all of the foundation in 2 brood boxes. Right??

John Rintoul
(919) 967-0674 (H)
(919) 414-4071 (M)

No trees were killed in the distribution of this message, but countless electrons were seriously inconvenienced.

On Jul 11, 2014, at 6:31 PM, Katja Sage via ocba <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org> wrote:

Hello,

Mark and I feel very fortunate as newbees this year that our hives are buzzing with active queens, good brood patterns, and honey stores.  One is more active and productive than the other, but both are doing well overall.  We've had an excellent mentor, and he's been a great help in guiding us (thanks, Dave!).

We thought we'd open Pandora's box here and ask for opinions on feeding.  We chose top feeders for our hives from the start, and fed 1:1 sugar syrup through mid-May.  In mid-June, we thought we should start feeding again, especially the weaker hive, as the nectar flow dwindled.  However, the bees are going through 2 gallons per hive of syrup every few days!  We are careful to check to add supers as needed for the honey, but at this rate, we are getting feeding fatigue and the sugar isn't so cheap, either.  We know the overarching answer is, "it depends on what you want to do."  Our goal is to make sure our hives are strong enough to winter over well.  We don't expect honey this year, as seems to be the prevailing wisdom for the first annum.

So our questions are, should we be feeding now?  If so, when can we stop again?  If not, when should we start up again?  Does anyone have an easier method (short of buying vats or truckloads of syrup) than mixing sugar with hot water and slowly adding the latter to the former?  Is there a trick to help the sugar dissolve when we move to a 2:1 ratio for the winter? (It is challenged to dissolve now with the current "lighter" ratio).

Thanks in advance for advice and wisdom!

Katja Sage and Mark Smith


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