Feeding Bees for Beginners

 

When I started I obsessed with all the opinions on feeding bees.  The more you read, the more opinions you find about “the right way”.  I use division board feeders but know that many Nebraska Beekeepers use a screened pail on top.

 

Bees collect nectar and dry it down to make honey.  An early confusion is the syrup mix.  Beekeepers use two formula; 1:1 in the spring to stimulate brood rearing and 2:1 in the fall to augment the hive’s winter supply on honey.   The 2:1 is 2 lbs granulated sugar to 1 lb (a pint) water.  You cannot use powdered sugar as it also contains starch, which sickens bees.  You also should not use “free sources” like the high school’s left over coke syrup.  You need to buy granulated sugar.  Throughout the year sugar varies greatly in price.  My wife is a shopper, when we find some special like “$0.99 for four pounds limit 2”, we’ll limit ourselves several times that week. Heck at $0.89 we just keep going back and forth from the truck to the checkout stand until they kick us out.

 

The Boardman feeder sits outside the hive and is no longer recommended.  First off, you’ll break the glass jar.  The syrup outside the hive attracts robbers and the jar heating and cooling can “vapor lock”.  Division board feeders hold about 1 gallon of syrup and you can “crack the lid” and fill without smoking/opening the hive.  Most division board feeders have rough sides but I always put twigs in the syrup to keep more bees from drowning.  Feeder pails have a very fine screen, they are set upside down over the inner cover and the syrup doesn’t run out, the bees suck it out.  You simply surround the pail with an empty brood box.   The advantage of pails over division board feeders is that you can make them up ahead of time. A variation on the pail is to use ziplock bags.  You lay the bag on the inner cover (not over the hole obviously) and punch several holes in the top of the bag.  The bees will come up and suck out of the holes.  You again surround the bag with an empty box.

 

How much to feed?  If you are starting a new package, you can feed them a gallon per week.  A larger hive will use more.  As soon as there is a nectar flow they will stop taking your man made syrup, that’s when to stop.  Be aware that we may have a short flow followed by a period of dearth and you would need to resume feeding.  The weather in Nebraska is variable. You will just have to observe your bees.   The first feeding in the spring beekeepers add Fumidal B to the syrup to prevent nosema.  To get this into the syrup you need to heat the water and dissolve the powder.

 

Try to feed the bees with the minimum of hive disturbance.  In general you don’t want to be constantly upsetting the hive.  You would become less productive yourself if some fat guy came through your house every weekend and upset all the furniture.  What happens is you break areas that they have sealed with propolis, you uncap cells between frames and generally make a mess.  For the next few days the bees can’t go out and gather pollen or nectar, they have to straighten the house back up.  I use division board feeders, always in the right upper position so I can crack the cover, fill and leave.   Us a 5 gallon jug with a gasoline can type spout to pour.  If you just use a gasoline can it would be best to mark it plainly,  sugar could be hard on your lawnmower!

 

The last kind of feeding is emergency feeding in February and March.  Bees starve in March!  I use a sugar board.  For me this is a telescoping cover with the candy in the lid.  You make the candy by heating 1 pound of water and adding 5 lbs of sugar.  At 234 degrees it will turn white (it marbleizes) and you quickly pour into the lid before it sets up.  Its easy to remember this formula 1-2-3-4-5.  I will make a couple of these and store them in garbage bags.  When I lift a hive in March and its light, I will remove the inner and telescoping covers and put on my candy lid.