Boiling water when making sugar syrup?

[TheMasonicHive]

I've been making lots of syrup for my first year.  I got the recipe from Beekeeping for Dummies.

I do 2 1/2 Quarts of water to a 5 lb bag of sugar. 

The thing is in the book they say to boil the water.

Now I've told people this and they look at me like I'm crazy.

There MUST be some reason they tell you to boil the water prior to adding the sugar.  Why is that and is it really necessary?

[jgaito]

boiling improves the purity and aids in dissolving the sugar.  just don't continue to boil when the sugar is added.

[Kathyp]

you can boil it if you want.  sometimes with really large quantities, some hotter water helps dissolve the sugar faster.  i don't bother.

[Course Bee]

I boiled the water the first time as the book said but have just used hot tap water since then and had no problem.

Tim

[FRAMEshift]

The only reason to heat the water at all is to speed up the dissolving of the sugar.  This is not a supersaturated solution so the final result is the same whether you heat the water or not.  And if you heat it, you have the mess of spilling sugar on the stove etc.  Unless you are in a hurry, just mix sugar and water and set it outside in the summer sun (covered of course) until the sugar dissolves.  Might take 24 hours.

[Hethen57]

When I feed light syrup, I try to keep it real simple....Fill mason jar about 2/3 with sugar, then fill with hot water or insta hot and stir with butter knife to dissolve or cap and shake.  I takes under a minute.

[slacker361]

Boiling will help take the flouride if you have it and the chlorine out of the h2o

[riverrat]

i just mix it with warm tap water and go. I must say I have never read the book beekeeping for dummies or for that matter no book that is for dummies. I dont think anyone should be thought of as a dummy so I dont read them books but got plenty of others i read

[Michael Bush]

It's difficult if not impossible to get 2:1 to dissolve if you don't boil the water.  You're making 1:1.  That's not as hard.  Hot tap water will do, but if you boil the water the syrup will keep much longer.   If you make it 2:1 it will keep even longer and you can make less, haul less out to the hives...

[oldenglish]

It all comes down to how much you have to make.
I started off boiling and mixing and that got old fast, then I went to a quicker method where I would take 4lbs of sugar put it in a 1 gallon milk jug add hot water straight from the tap, replace the lid and shake like crazy, once the sugar dissolves just top off with water. Easy to do and easy to transport to the hive.
Now I have more hives I use a 20 gallon plastic garbage can, dump in 50 LBs of sugar, add three five gallon buckets of hot water straight from the tap and mix with paint mixer and drill motor. The buckets are never quite full so it is actually nearer to the correct ratio of 50 LBs to 13 gallon.
You can be off a bit either way and the bees wont mind.
Add some thymol and the syrup lasts forever or at least until you need to mix more

[FRAMEshift]

Have you tried adding lemon juice to drop the pH a bit?  How much do you use?

[iddee]

Old english, do you always use 1:2 ratio? Most of us use 1:1 or 2:1. I've never heard of using 1 sugar to 2 water.

[oldenglish]

Old english, do you always use 1:2 ratio? Most of us use 1:1 or 2:1. I've never heard of using 1 sugar to 2 water.

with the gallon jug its close, when you put in the sugar you are nearly half full on the container, even disolved you only gain about half a cup of space so the mix ratio is very close to 1:1, it may be off a bit as the sugar is dissolving as you add the water.

On my garbage can calculation I now see that I completey failed my math 101.
50 LB of sugar at a 1:1 ratio would only make 6.25 gallons and I have been making about 12 gallons so my ratio was the wrong way, that said the consitancy of the mix seemed about right and the bees made good use of it, going through about a gallon every 2-3 days

I guess if I mixed it to the correct ratio they may take less, something to think about next spring.

[TheMasonicHive]

Every single batch I make gets a few spoons of Honey-B-Healthy in it.  I've never heard anything bad about it.

I also don't keep more than 2 or 3 gallons on hand at any given time.

Now that I think about it, I usually make the syrup then put it in my car behind my drivers seat in case I get to the hives and see that one is empty.

With the 90 degree heat here, I'd imagine that that would be enough to heat the water instead of me boiling it all the time.

But as MB points out, maybe its a good habit to get into considering I'll eventually have to make 2:1

[Michael Bush]

>I've never heard anything bad about it.

Well, it kills microbes which upsets the balance of the microbes in the bees' guts and in the hive and interferes with fermentation of bee bread (the only way they can digest pollen is by fermenting it first).  So now you've heard somethign bad about it...

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoursimplesteps.htm#ecology
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmorethan.htm

[Chrisd4421]

OK...now I am confused....I take 12 cups of sugar to 8 cups of water - I always assumed that this is 3:2.  Everyone here is talking weight and I don't have a scale available. 

Am I off base?  Should I be doing something different?

/Chris in NJ

[TheMasonicHive]

I'm pretty sure the best way to measure ANYTHING is by weight, not by volume.

I don't have a scale either, but thats just because I haven't taken the time to honestly look for one that will do metric, and english, have a tare weight and what have you. 

Any suggestions would be nice!

[alfred]

I stir the mixture until clear then let it simmer for a bit.

If you ad an acid (lemon juice is what I use) and do a low boil or simmer the syrup for say 15 min it will divert into what cooks call a simple syrup. The syrup will be much less likley to crystalize in the feeder and the girls seem to like it much more.

[iddee]

Sugar and water weigh near enough the same that you cam use either volume or weight.

Chris, you are mixing 3:2, but why would you? Most use 1:1 for spring, 2:1 for fall/winter.

[Chrisd4421]

Chris, you are mixing 3:2, but why would you? Most use 1:1 for spring, 2:1 for fall/winter.

iddee,
     No real good answer...I started 1:1 and eventually made it to 3:2.  Bees like it (I assume) and it lasts a little longer (probably my imagination).  I will plan on starting with 2:1 or something close to that come end of Sept/beginning of Oct here in NJ.  Heck, I may even stay at 3:2 if the bees are doing well.

Thank
/Chris in NJ