What Does the Novice Beekeeper Need to Know?

Number 12a

Are you feeding your bees?

"And Why"

There are many reasons to feed your bees. You need to figure out if your bees need assistance in one of these areas. Then figure out which style of feed and presentation (feeder) is best for you.

It is currently winter to the bees. Did your bees put up enough honey for the entire winter or will they starve to death the end of February? Symptoms of starvation, shivering (but you don't notice because hive is closed). Also, the bees have lost their "fat bodies".

When you inspect the hive at 50^o you can just pop the top. At 65^o you can remove frames and manipulate the frames. This will break the cluster which you do not want to do below 65^o.

Here in the mountains it is good to follow the 90 lbs. rule. "Your bee hive will consume 90 lbs. of honey between Thanksgiving and the end of March. How do you check for honey stores in the hive when it is too cold to open the hive? The "tilt test" is the easiest way. Just try lifting the entire hive from one corner. If you practice in the fall you will learn what a full heavy hive feels like. When the weather is appropriate you can do a frame inspection seeing how much honey there is in the hive and moving the frames closer to the cluster area and above the cluster. Sometimes the bees don't go looking for the honey. Bees move up the center.

What can you do for emergency feeding? You can sprinkle granulated solid sugar on the top bars. The bees will eat the sugar but it takes a lot of water as the bees must dissolve the sugar to consume it. You can sprinkle powdered sugar on the bees. They will consume it while grooming if it is warm enough. They will need some water with this technique also. Fondant is a good food, placed on the top bars near the bees. It will have to be warm enough they can move to it. Fondant is thick sugar cake frosting. It is damp so does not require much water.

Where do the bees get the water when it is too cold to fly? They lick up the condensation inside the hive.

February and the queen starts brooding! This creates a big increase in stored honey consumption. It takes about 7 honey cells per larvae. The colony can run out of honey and starve very quickly. The demand for pollen to feed brood also goes up, but there is usually enough stored pollen to cover this. Hatching brood also needs to be fed bee bread within 2 hours. All of this food is located near the brood under the cluster? When you inspect look for it.

During warm weather spells the brood area expands to where it exceeds the size of the cluster on cold days. The brood left outside the cluster on cold days and nights will be chilled and that brood die off. You will see dead larvae carcasses thrown out the front door. Don't confuse this with a disease. It is okay. Your queen will get a head start on population expansion when the warm weather settles in every day.

Okay, we made it through the winter: Now what? Are you forcing the queen to maximize egg laying? Feed 1:1 syrup and pollen patties.

Do you have lots of bees and you want to draw comb? Feed 1:1 syrup to stimulate wax building and no pollen for brood food.

Is it still touch and go for cool weather and you want to encourage storing a little more honey? Feed 2:1 sugar to water syrup which stimulates honey storage.

Spring has finally "arrived": The red maple and henbit weed are blooming and the queen has started laying eggs. You see bees bringing in Pollen. Does she have enough drawn comb to last awhile (3+ frames)? Is she brooding on the warm side of the hive and expanding sideways vs. the center of the hive and expanding in a 3 dimensional ball? Usually she is on the warm side of the hive.

Is she "up" in a double hive body or the winter food honey super"? Turn the hive over placing her on the bottom. Sort all the frames so the stored food is nearest her. Move the brooding frames down individually or by rotating the top box to the bottom. Don't turn the boxes "over" with the top bars down.

I want to level the daily flow of nectar and pollen coming into the hive. Cool or rainy days reduce the amount of food bees are collection. The Queen will slow down egg laying periodically on cold days when incoming food is reduced (lack of foraging). If I feed pollen substitute and syrup at the hive it is warm enough so the bees don't have to fly and forage, they can get the food inside the hive.

Feeding through a DEARTH! You don't want the bees to eat all their winter stores in the late summer. Where are the winter stores stored? They are in the outer extremities of the hive cavity and above the brood area. You can't count on the "rest of the year" being long enough for the bees to put up enough natural honey for winter. By feeding 1:1 syrup the bees will keep working and not put a big drain on the future winter food stores.

Fall has come! You are removing your honey supers to extract the honey. How much should you take. Should you leave it mostly for winter food. Is honey a better food than syrup honey? Should I mix additives with my syrup? Syrup and natural nectar make a better blend of stored honey than pure syrup honey.

Non extracted honey technique: leave the honey on the hive, remove one frame at a time. Eat chunk/cut comb honey and share with the bees. All winter the bees will eat from the bottom up and you will eat from the top down. Plus, you don't have to buy jars.

Feed for the spring in the Fall. The 50^o rule says honey bees don't make honey when the temperature is under 50^o. So, if the bees have not stored up enough honey by Thanksgiving they might run out of food in January before the temperatures get back up to 50^o. When daily high temperatures are in the 50^o range the bees will make honey for 1-2 hours, maybe. But, they eat 4 hours worth of food. This is when the 90 lbs. rule comes in to affect to get you to March.

STYLE OF PRESENTATION: How are you presenting the syrup and pollen to the bees? This can make a difference on how many days the bees can collect "artificial" food. Cold, rainy days will limit foraging.

Field feeders are easy to fill and monitor. The size is immaterial. The size is contingent on how many bees you have, the time you have to return and service the feeders, and whether the syrup will spoil before the bees can carry it to the hive. The big disadvantage to field feeding is that you are feeding all the wild bees and your neighbors' bees along with yours. This can spread diseases and may not be cost effective. Is the weather warm enough for the bees to forage.

In-hive feeders are efficient for the bees. The syrup is approximately where the bees might find stored honey. There are many styles: frame replacement, trays above the top bars, jars on the top bar w/ empty hive body surrounding them, baggie feeders on the top bar. The main disadvantage is you have to open the hive to check the syrup levels before refilling.

Bordman feeders work at the front door of the hive. They are easy to check. You can monitor the intake daily without opening the hives. The disadvantages are they are time consuming to refill if you have very many hives. You are limited in the amount of syrup you can place on each hive. When bees are really active and some hives are much stronger than others the entrance feeder might stimulate syrup robbing. I use glass jars in the coldest months. When the jars are empty (the bees are not collecting syrup anyway) I leave them on the hive. The sun warms the air in the jar forcing hotter air into the entrance of the hive. I don't know if it helps, but, I feel better.

You can place several types of feeders through or over a hole in the outer top cover. A jar or bucket with small holes poked in it works just fine. You can use pint or quart jars. You can use a 5 gallon (or smaller) bucket. The bees will climb up through the top bars whenever it is warm enough break the cluster and look for food. There are not too many disadvantages to this technique. Syrup levels are easy to check. Bee movement is very natural. Bees can work on cooler days when they won't fly. Proper sized holes in the feeder won't drip on the bees.

Size of feeders is adjusted to how often you want service them. What is important is the number and size of holes in the feeders. Holes are the smallest you can make to avoid dripping. Spacing holes far enough apart so the bees can get to them with out wasting holes is important. Then you can regulate how fast the bees empty the feeder by limiting the number of holes. Some times you just want to use your feeder as a supplemental nectar source until the next group of flowers bloom so you want them to be emptied very slowly.

WARNING: Feeders can become a breeding area for hive beetles.

If you desire to supplement feeding with the numerous additives on the market feeders are handy. If you need to add water or salt to the bees diet because they are not available naturally the feeder works.

Pests can be attracted to feeders (yellow jackets, bumble bees, European hornets, racoons). This will impact on where you place your feeders.

Pests attracted to your bees are always a consideration. The better of a beekeeper, the more bees you have, the better attractant for bears, skunks, hornets, birds, lizards, or praying mantises.

FONDANT RECIPE: Powdered sugar paste like frosting. 10x powdered sugar? Some folks say the corn starch that keeps commercial confectioners' sugar from clumping is bad for the bees. Probably not in the amount the bees will consume. You can put regular granulated sugar in the blender and powder it yourself.

SYRUP RECIPE: The first number is sugar. The second is water. 1:1 2:1 You do not have to be a scientist. One gallon of water weighs about 8 lbs. Two 4 lbs. bags of sugar is just right for 1:1. Forty pounds of sugar (5 gal. bucket) and 5 gal of water (40 lbs.) won't fit in a five gallon bucket. Put your sugar in first and then add water until the bucket is full. You won't be quite one to one but all flowers are not equal either.

FIGHT BLACK ALGAE IN FEEDER by adding a dab of bleach. Bees drink swimming pool water with no ill affects.

HONEY BEE HEALTHY can be made at home verses buying a gallon of sugar syrup water with some lemongrass oil and spearmint oil added to it.

USE OF SALT to control WEEDS AND HIVE BEETLES in the apiary. The honeybee needs salt to make the enzymes used to make honey. The dew will melt the salt and the bees will lick it up. Use granulated red agricultural mineral salt and you will provide trace minerals that also benefit the bees. Where does natural salt come from that bees collect? From deteriorating vegetation and rabbit urine.

MAY NEED TO PROVIDE WATER SOURCE for the bees. A BIRD BATH works but must be cleaned and refilled. You can set up a slow drip system as big as a 55 gal. barrel if necessary. Have it drip onto a board with some sponges stapled to it to hold the water so the bees can lick it up. Wildlife might also take advantage of this.