Brown sugar

[doak]

I had a reply ready to post today and the storm hit. We had a one hour power outage.
I forgot what thread  I was on, so here goes.
"DO NOT" feed brown sugar. Use granulated pure cane "white" sugar to make syrup with.
"DO NOT" feed honey. Except what you leave on the hive that the bees made. If you take it off and store it, and you have more than one hive, mark each one to the hive it came off.

We do not have to follow the comercial bee keepers rutine. They pull all the honey, then feed cornsyrup,
Why?  Because a 5 gal bucket,"60 lbs" of honey brings from 60 to 120 $'s. That is wholesale price 1 & 2 $ a pound. A 5 gal bucket of corn syrup cost $15 to $20. You do the math.

Do some research in your area and find out how much it takes in lbs of honey, to get a colony through the winter. Most hives will starve out in early to mid spring. Why? Because it takes more and more each day as the brood grows. If you leave 40 to 60 lbs on the hive it should last till this time if not longer.
That first inspection is when you should make "sure" they have plenty of honey left. If not feed sugar syrup 1 to 1  ratio.
If anyone can dispute this I want to hear it. Maybe I'm wrong.
doak

[Michael Bush]

For Georgia, I assume you are correct on the number of pounds to get through the winter.

I'd feed 2:1 sugar:water.

Here I'd leave 90 pounds of actual stores, at least.  The hive should weigh between 100 and 150 pounds to get through our winters reliably with Italian bees.