Sugar syrup & multivitamins

[Richard M]

I've read a few recipes for sugar syrup which includes adding a crushed up/dissolved multi vitamin pill.

"Multivitamin" covers a multitude of possibilities; the bottle I found in the medicine cabinet are "Womens Vitality Multi" - well most bees are female so that's a start.

Looking at the list of ingredients, it appears that many of them are what I'd expect to find in pollen and honey, including various trace metals, albeit probably in far higher concentrations than in honey or pollen. Are the vitamins in honey etc something the bees need or are they just "natural" contaminants which are neither here nor there to insects?

Does anyone do this or have any knowledge as to whether adding multivitamins to bee syrup is a good thing, a bad thing or maybe just a pointless thing to do?

[Michael Bush]

I know of some research that vitamin C is good for them...

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3896/IBRA.1.51.3.07

[hjon71]

Thanks for that link Michael.

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[beesNme]

"Womens Vitality Multi" - well most bees are female so that's a start.

i like that  lol.  seems interesting, i like the homemade honey b healthy

[jalentour]

I like Honey B Healthy.

[deknow]

It baffles me that beekeepers think that some combination of human vitimims is a good thing to force feed to a colony of bees.

[BeeMaster2]

Richard,
Bee very careful with what you give your bees. Remember, they are very small and most vitamins weigh more than the bee. I have a friend that works with a company that is constantly testing feed for bees and those were her words of warning.
Jim

[GSF]

I've been mixing Vitamins & Electrolytes plus (usually used in chicken water) in my sugar syrup since summer before last. I also add vinegar/real lemon juice/citric acid/and a couple other things. I went into the winter with 20 hives and as it looks like now all of them are coming out of winter healthy. I can't say that it does or doesn't do the bees good but it gives me a warm and fuzzy. I did have a ton of swarms last year.