Sugar syrup can help enhance brood rearing and increase weight during winter, with most beekeepers employing two different feeding regimes depending on the season.
One pint container (dry weighed) of white sugar and water weighs nearly one pound, so this ratio may be used in Miller feeders or an inverted quart jar, paint can with holes etc.
Contents
1. Stimulates Brood Rearing
When honey stores become low or energy is lacking, feeding a light syrup provides extra resources that bees can use to construct more comb, rear children and produce wax.
Beekeepers typically opt for a mixture of 1:1 sugar:water ratio; however, some prefer denser syrup such as 2:1. Whatever ratio you select, all should be prepared in warm water to facilitate sugar dissolution more readily and avoid caramelisation of its components.
Sugar syrup should then be fed to the beehives using inverted containers such as jars with lids, paint cans with holes drilled in their tops, polystyrene floats or Boardman feeders. These may be placed directly onto the hive or use risers for this task – risers must remain secure otherwise they could fall off and allow water to enter, potentially leading to damp conditions within your hive, as well as inviting in fungus or mites into its interior.
2. Stimulates Honey Production
Sugar syrup may not be bees’ natural food source; however, in its absence it can serve as an invaluable aid for encouraging brood rearing and incentivizing workers to build out foundation.
Sugar to water ratios differ depending on the season and what you hope to accomplish with your syrup-making endeavor. For instance, mixing 1:1 can encourage brood rearing in spring as well as supporting weaker colonies or those that have been split.
Whenever creating sugar syrup, be sure to heat the water until it is just boiling – this will allow sugar crystals to disperse more readily and be digested more readily by bees. A small addition of Thymol or Surgical Spirit – commonly used as bandage antiseptic – may provide extra protection from pathogens that might spoil it all.
3. Stimulates Comb Building
One part sugar to two parts water (or 1:1 syrup) is ideal for encouraging comb building, mimicking the high sugar content of spring nectar while stimulating brood cell production. 1:1 syrup may also provide relief during periods when fruit bloom ends before honey production begins or when natural food sources in fall become scarcer than expected.
Commercial beekeepers who utilize heavier syrup (either 2:1 or high fructose corn syrup) do not seem to find it encouraging in encouraging bees to build new comb. Instead, this tends to cause them to backfill existing cells instead of producing new brood cells quickly, which poses an issue when trying to increase egg production from your queen bees.
4. Stimulates Flight
When working with new colonies in the springtime, light syrup helps them get established by building comb and raising brood. Later in summer it can also be used to stimulate flight when natural nectar supplies become limited.
Sugar solutions should be prepared using warm (not boiling) water as this allows the bees to process it more quickly, thus decreasing their susceptibility to disease (1).
Some beekeepers place syrup in a bowl outside their hives and leave it as an all-you-can-eat buffet for bees to feed on, though this method is unhygienic and attracts robbers. An effective feeder would consist of an upside-down mason jar fitted with six to eight small holes on its lid drilled or punched by a drill, mounted upside-down onto a wooden base that inverts over it, with another lid placed upside-down and closed around it by bees when feeding on this way.
