When flowers become scarce, bees require additional food sources in order to survive. While not ideal, it can help save a colony.
Use equal parts sugar and water for optimal results, measuring either by volume or weight.
Begin with a clean pail equipped with a lid. Make sure that it contains small divider walls near its top for easy separation of materials.
Contents
1. Use a Pail
This project makes providing bees with sugar water easy. All that’s required is a plastic pail with a snap-on lid and no unpleasant odors, along with a tint plug pressed into its center to form a small hole and drill/punch holes into its surface surface of 8-12 small diameter.
Leakage from leaky feeders encourages robbing, and weak colonies may collapse in times of food shortage; be sure that the lid on your container or jar is securely fastened for best results.
Equal parts of sugar and water should be combined to form a 1:1 syrup for bees to consume all year. Some beekeepers also prefer providing more dense 2:1 syrup in autumn as an inducement for food storage over winter. Weight measurements work better, although volume will also do the trick. You will also require a clean glass jar with lid (quart size works fine) in which to store this solution.
2. Drill Holes
Beekeepers commonly opt for one method of feeding their bee hive. This involves pouring 2:1 sugar water into a half-gallon canning jar and marking its level of dry sugar on its lid. Once ready to use, inverting this jar over the entrance of your beehive with an empty body and regular outer cover placed around it.
Bees feed off of the syrup through holes in the lid, though this process can become messy as more and more liquid accumulates inside of the jar and seeps out, possibly dripping onto nearby objects (or bees!).
One way to avoid mess is to add nail holes into the lid of your pail before mixing sugar water, so once your mix is ready you can flip it inverted over an entrance hole in the hive and replace the inner cover – bees will then feed from these nail-holes!
3. Fill the Pail
Refresh sugar water using a standard jar by mixing sugar with hot tap water until all of it has been completely dissolved. Fill your clean jar up almost to its lip, which should be slightly larger than that of the lid, then secure its top. Rinse the entire feeder to rid any sticky drips of sticky sugar water.
Sugar water can be an ideal way to feed bees during spring and summer, but in fall beekeepers usually opt for a 2:1 sugar water mixture to help their bees gain weight before winter hits. Once snow arrives though, bees usually prefer solid foods such as candy boards or fondant to stay alive and well.
Beekeepers often find that mixing up larger batches in 5-gallon buckets and refrigerating it as an efficient and time-saving way of feeding bees. Be sure to add corks, sticks or anything floaty for added perching space for your bees!
4. Cover the Pail
Some beekeepers feed sugar water to their colonies at certain times of year to encourage brood rearing in spring and provide additional feeding to new colonies or those suffering from nosema, as well as keeping honey bees alive during winter when production levels may be limited.
To create sugar water, combine equal parts of white sugar and water. Heat until just starting to boil before stirring in sugar until completely dissolved; cool before refrigerating for storage in your fridge.
To cover your pail, choose a plastic or glass container just large enough to accommodate its lid, punch or drill six or eight very small holes into it, punch out or drill through those holes to allow bees to drink, place that lid back on top and turn the jar upside down – open jars can attract robber bees, wasps and other pests that compete with bees for sugar water and drown themselves instead of being consumed by bees.
