Feeding frenzy in the backyard!

I went out to give Aureus another bag of sugar syrup today. That's how we feed a long hive, with a gallon bag placed inside the hive. The bag has small slits cut in the top surface which allow the bees to reach the syrup inside without it leaking out. During the dearth, the bees know a good thing when they find it, and they can put away a gallon of syrup in just a couple of days.

There are always some drips when you slit a feed bag, so I had a saucer handy to catch them. Afterwards, I set the saucer down on the bottom board so the girls could easily clean up. But they got much more excited than I was expecting!



It might look and sound threatening, but actually the girls are extremely gentle when they're focused on food.

Here's a close-up of the bees crowding into the saucer.



5 minutes before there was a quarter inch of syrup in it. They'll have it cleaned dry in no time.

Feeding sugar water- the necessary evil

Sugar is not the perfect bee food. Honey contains micro-nutrients, and is already partially fermented. If we had enough honey, we would never feed sugar. And once a hive is established, there should be sufficient honey stores to get the hive through any likely downturn in nectar availability.

New hives are a different matter. New packages always need feed in the spring, since they have to build comb from scratch. Even later in the year, hives started from a package will need some help. So if we are going to feed sugar, what concentration should we use? Traditionally, a 1:1 sugar:water syrup is the standard spring feed. The bees use it for immediate consumption to power comb building. Since it takes 8 lbs of honey (or concentrated sugar water) to make one lb of wax comb, the energy demands are huge.

A tougher question is what to feed later in the year..... after the Summer Solstice. A 2:1 sugar:water syrup is traditional for the late summer and fall. It is more concentrated so the bees have less evaporating to do in order to store it for winter use. But what if you still don't have enough comb? Do you want the bees to use the feed to make more comb, or store it in whatever comb exists?

The seasoned beekeepers I have talked with seem to agree that 1:1 is the best choice. It is easier for the bees to evaporate it down for storage than it is for them to dilute 2:1 for consumption. So it's best to give them something that is easily used for either purpose. As usual, it's best to leave the decision up to the bees!

Getting ready for the dearth...

At the Chapel Hill Bees apiary (my backyard), we are all focused on getting our hives through the winter. It seems like a long way off, but beekeepers in most parts of the US must begin planning for winter as early as July! The reason: dearth. This term refers to a steep drop in the availability of nectar. In central North Carolina, the dearth comes with the highest temperatures of the year. When daytime highs spike into the upper 90s, humidity climbs, and rainfall drops off, most flowering plants cannot successfully reproduce. As a result, few plants bloom at this time of year. Dearth usually begins at the end of July and can last into the middle of September.

Dearth is a difficult time for honey bees. Since the foraging workforce lives only a few weeks, the colony must continue to raise new bees even through the dearth. This means that the colony continues to consume honey and pollen even though no new stores are being brought into the hive. Queens from locally adapted stock will reduce laying to replacement rates or less in order to slow the rate of consumption, but all colonies operate at a net loss during dearth. In a bad year or for a weak colony, dearth can be disastrous. Colonies can starve to death in just a few weeks. In addition, cooling of the hive becomes more and more difficult as temperatures rise. If the interior temperature tops 98 degrees, brood may die and wax comb may soften and collapse. All in all, a very challenging time for bees and beekeepers alike!

Both of our home hives, Voyager and Aureus, are well designed and well ventilated, but both are also new this year. Aureus has only been a separate hive for 4 weeks, and is barely large enough to be called a colony! Voyager has more honey stores, but has just been through a long broodless period as they reared Benita, their new queen. Both hives are making great progress, but neither has the large reserves they'll need to get through the winter. If they consume large amounts during the dearth, we may have to face killing one of the queens and recombining the hives so that they survive.

That means we'll be feeding both hives sugar syrup, beginning on Thursday and continuing well into October. Hopefully we'll have a fall nectar flow and be able to stop, but older keepers have told us that the central NC fall flow is often too weak to make up for the dearth. Sugar feeding is not ideal, but right now our first priority is to keep both colonies alive until spring!