emergency feeding technique

brendan · October 15, 2009, 03:44:33 PM

I had an idea last night while laying in bed thinking about beekeeping.
Could emergency feeding be done by taking old empty drawn comb and packing the cells with granulated sugar, maybe giving it a spray with water mist to hold it in so it clumps. It seems like this would be an easy way to get feed right down next to the bees without having to boil syrup and would not add allot of moisture to the hive in the winter. Has anyone tried this, do you think it would work?

Michael Bush · October 15, 2009, 10:07:51 PM

>Has anyone tried this

Yes.

> do you think it would work?

Yes.

You can also put syrup in the spray bottle and spray syrup into the cells. Another method from one of the old bee books (maybe fifty years among the bees?) was to use a sprinkler can and pour it into the cells. Dunking it in syrup does NOT work.

brendan · October 15, 2009, 11:38:44 PM

thanks for the reply,
It just seems to me that this would be such a darned easy way to feed the bees. No measuring, no mixing, just pour the dry sugar on the empty comb and wet it a bit and then drop it in. I dont see the advantage of mixing. Any downside, am I missing something.

Robo · October 15, 2009, 11:54:14 PM

Kelley use to sell a tank that had a spray bar on each side. You just lowered the empty frames down between the spray bars to fill the frames with syrup.

How is filling frames with granulated sugar easier than laying a piece of newspaper across the top bars and just dumping the sugar there? Personally I don't think you going to get enough sugar in the frames to last the winter on hives with limited or no honey. Secondly you would need to open up the hives to put them in/refill.

brendan · October 16, 2009, 12:05:22 AM

I was thinking that having the sugar closer to the cluster the bees could acess the sugar easier. Will the bees have to break cluster to get to a pile of sugar on the top?

Kathyp · October 16, 2009, 02:30:44 AM

mine fly any day that it gets into the 40s and there is no wind. if the hives are in sun, they will warm up enough to break cluster at that temp. i have even had them fly with snow on the ground when the temp was in the high 30s. it just got warm enough in the sun for them. of course, there were lots of dead bees in the snow.......

kdm · October 16, 2009, 04:18:54 AM

A commercial beekeeper has some bees next to me. he had a truck load of sugar next to the road so i stopped to chat. He was placing old comb flat on top of the frames and pouring dry sugar in the cells heaping it up and spraying it with a little water. I would rather use paper.

Michael Bush · October 16, 2009, 06:56:16 AM

>It just seems to me that this would be such a darned easy way to feed the bees.

That's because you haven't tried it. :)

Here's an easy way to feed bees:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm#drysugar

Robo · October 16, 2009, 07:33:45 AM

Quote from: brendan on October 16, 2009, 12:05:22 AM
I was thinking that having the sugar closer to the cluster the bees could acess the sugar easier. Will the bees have to break cluster to get to a pile of sugar on the top?

If you put the newspaper/sugar right on the top bars, no they won't need to break cluster. In fact, they have less distance to travel then jumping the gap between 2 supers. If you put it on top of the inner cover, that is a different story.

David LaFerney · October 16, 2009, 10:38:12 AM

Dry sugar on the top bars sure looks like the quick and easy route - quick and easy is good. But, If the sugar isn't gone by the time you need to make an early inspection or add a super what do you do? Is it likely to be hardened into a chunk that can be removed or is it just going to be a wasteful mess? Making a big slab of candy instead sounds like a lot more work, but I could see it preventing that issue - if it is an issue.

I guess if I procrastinate a little longer I'll end up doing the quick and dirty (dry sugar) just to get the job done.

Michael Bush · October 16, 2009, 08:17:15 PM

>But, If the sugar isn't gone by the time you need to make an early inspection or add a super what do you do?

I hope it's not, because if it IS gone they have usually starved. What I do is smoke them heavily to get as many as I can out of the sugar and slide it off into a plastic bucket, put the lid on and save it for making syrup. I do have to use a sieve to get the newspaper out of the syrup, but it works well otherwise. Or I can put it on as it was before except on a newspaper and fill the gaps with fresh sugar.

> Is it likely to be hardened into a chunk that can be removed

Yes and no. It's hardened but breaks up. It's stuck to the newspaper...

> or is it just going to be a wasteful mess?

I never waste it. Sometimes I've just dumped all of it into one stack of empty boxes and left it for open feeding. They ignore it once there is a flow but in the fall you can tell when you have a dearth because they will be all over it again.

> Making a big slab of candy instead sounds like a lot more work

Yes.

> but I could see it preventing that issue - if it is an issue.

But it doesn't prevent the fact that you have only a partially eaten chunk of sugar that you need to do something with. But you can, of course, use it in several ways as already discussed, syrup, reuse as feed as is, or, in the case of the candy, remake it into candy again...

Koala John · October 17, 2009, 03:43:06 AM

Open feeding dry sugar? That's an interesting thought Michael, I've never experimented with that as a way of using up the sugar left over from Winter. I might leave some out just to use as an indicator of a dearth. Could be quite educational for me!

I used to work away all day over a hot stove cooking up candy boards and syrup, but now I'll only ever use sugar on newspaper. For me it's so simple, quick and easy, and I've had great results with it.

Robo · October 17, 2009, 08:13:41 AM

Quote from: Koala John on October 17, 2009, 03:43:06 AM
Open feeding dry sugar? That's an interesting thought Michael, I've never experimented with that as a way of using up the sugar left over from Winter. I might leave some out just to use as an indicator of a dearth. Could be quite educational for me!

Just be careful and do it far away from your hives. I have found there really needs to be a strong dearth (ie. nothing else) for them to take it and it will attract yellow jackets as well and easily leads to robbing.

Michael Bush · October 17, 2009, 11:20:20 AM

It will attract yellow jackets and ants and I would do it at least a few yards away from the hives. The bees ignore it unless there is a dearth.

David LaFerney · October 17, 2009, 05:51:12 PM

Sounds pretty convincing - all of my concerns shot full of holes. I don't really see a compelling reason not to just use dry sugar. Being lazy by nature I should always just go with the KISS method and not worry about it - it's usually the best thing to do anyway. Thanks for all of the information that I'm sure gets rehashed every single fall. And for being helpful and patient.

weBEE Jammin · October 18, 2009, 06:43:29 PM

Is there a certain section of newspaper they prefer? i.e. Fashion (all female after they push the drones out). :-D

Two Bees · November 24, 2009, 09:56:12 AM

The girls most likely would like the "Gardening" section!

Bee Whisper82 · November 25, 2009, 12:31:06 PM

I looked at this post to get some idea about what to do if I need to give the girls some more stores for winter and had all my questions answered. So I want to say thanks to all who gave info.

And I agree that the girls are after the "Gardening" section. lol :-D