No matter whether you capture your own swarm or purchase one from a commercial beekeeper, they will likely need to be fed. That is because they do not yet have any honey, pollen or other resources in their pantry.
Due to this, many beekeepers opt to install a feeder right away. Nevertheless, it should only be considered an extra measure and used as a last resort.
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Food
Bees typically feed on nectar, pollen and honey; however, sometimes they require additional foods for health. Supplementary items like sugar syrup and pollen patties can come in handy to provide essential nutrition.
Nectar, for instance, is a liquid food that bees can collect and store in their comb cells. It contains carbohydrates which they use for flight energy as well as building their hives.
Bees require protein and micronutrients from pollen to survive, such as sterols and vitamins. Without the correct amounts of these essential nutrients, bees become malnourished, leading to their population decline.
Feeding a swarm of bees can be a challenging task, but it is necessary for the health and well-being of your hive. Remember that the best food for bees is what they produce – nectar, pollen, honey and royal jelly.
Water
Water is an integral component of bee nutrition. It aids digestion and metabolism, as well as diluting stored honey or sugar crystals that contain too much glucose.
Bees can obtain water from various sources, such as pollen patty, syrup and even their own body fluids.
Water is essential in summertime when bees must regulate their hive temperature to stay healthy, as it helps protect them from heat stroke.
Water, as a polar molecule, attracts molecules with opposite charges. This attraction causes water molecules to stick together, creating cohesion.
When a swarm is newly hatched, they must build up their bodies quickly in order to survive. This can be challenging when they must stay indoors during winter or wait until blooming flowers are available in warm weather.
Hygiene
When feeding a swarm of bees, hygiene is an essential factor to take into account. Hygiene serves as a form of social immunity that keeps the colony healthy by quickly spotting and eliminating diseased brood before they can spread infection to others.
In some cases, this can prevent varroa mites from reproducing at all; in others it prevents them from infecting other bees and spreading diseases like American foulbrood and chalkbrood.
However, there are a variety of factors which can impact hygienic behavior. These include the availability or scarcity of sucrose syrup, brood manipulation and alternative treatments against varroa mites and other parasites.
Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) is an approach to hygiene that involves recognizing brood that have become infested with the mite, uncapping them and eliminating them before they can spread infection to other bees.
Safety
Swarming is the most common method honey bees use to establish new colonies. This typically involves a mated queen bee and hundreds or thousands of worker bees, all seeking shelter.
The queen and workers leave the hive to fly, usually for 24 to 36 hours, searching for a new location to establish their colony. They may land on trees limbs or other structures and scout bees help locate an ideal cavity where they can make their new home.
At this stage, swarms may lack resources to build their nest. To encourage them, beekeepers often feed them liquid food such as syrup or honey in order to encourage them to build combs quickly.
Feeding should only be used as a last resort and is usually unnecessary. It can attract predators such as robber bees, leading to an intense feeding frenzy that could potentially result in bee drowning or even their death.
