Feed your bees during winter by providing them with enough honey stores – the amount will depend on their region.
If they don’t get enough, feeding solid sugar or capped honey might help them out. Here are a few methods for doing this:.
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Pollen Patties
These commercial pollen patties offer your bees all of the protein, vitamins and lipids they require – unlike homemade recipes made of soy flour and brewer’s yeast which have no nutritional value to offer them. Furthermore, their unique attractant/feeding stimulant allows bees to consume them quicker.
A bee patty can be easily placed directly over the winter cluster without needing to open up the hive. For optimal results, placing it before spring buildup begins is recommended as otherwise bees could become dependent upon it and cease feeding themselves directly.
When making your own patties, be sure to use fresh ingredients since their nutritional value decreases with age. Or buy pre-made hive patties from local bee suppliers or online; usually sold in 10-pound packages that can easily be broken apart into individual patties for easy feeding; they’re even freezer friendly so they can be frozen and reused again next season!
Sugar Bricks
Sugar bricks (fondant patties or dry sugar) can provide your bees with an easy and nutritious winter food source that stays consistent over a prolonged period.
Winter feeding methods are especially crucial for northern beekeepers and can be lifesavers in cases when honey has been consumed prematurely by bees, or when Varroa mites have destroyed colonies. They’re also effective preventive measures if bee colonies cannot store enough honey.
Recipe requirements are straightforward and only require granulated sugar without any additives (like vanilla) and water for making honeycomb. Once heated in a pan or bowl over low to medium heat until it dissolves into something resembling warm honey-like consistency, then cool before hastening hardening with sprays of water squirting onto its surface.
Liquid Feeders
Many beekeepers rely on liquid feed to ensure their honey bee colonies have enough food stores for winter in cooler parts of Australia where queen bees cannot obtain sufficient nutrition from within their own hives during autumn and early winter. This method has proved particularly successful.
However, feeding should stop well before temperatures fall below 57 degrees F or the bees enter torpor and cannot access their sugar solution. Furthermore, placing liquid feeders outside your hive may attract unwelcome neighbouring bees (who may bring diseases) or robbing bees that will infiltrate and invade your colonies.
Emergency winter feed can easily be provided by placing a frame of capped honey into your hive on a warm day, ideally during an ideal bee feeding day when moisture content and nutrients can be fully utilized by bees. If no such frame of honey exists, sugar – either liquid or solid – can also be fed by placing near cluster on warm days.
Capped Honey
Bees should ideally store enough honey in their colonies during summer to survive winter on their own, however supplemental feeding may help if there was not enough forage or mites have taken their toll.
Most beekeepers begin feeding their colony in Fall with a concentrated sugar syrup made up of 2:1 (2 parts water to 1 part sugar). To create this feed, heat some water while slowly adding in sugar until all has dissolved completely – boiling can caramelize sugar into an indigestible solution for bees.
Dadant & Sons produces winter patties which provide similar nutritional support without as much work on your part, using high-carbohydrate patties supplemented with pollen substitute AP23 and Honey-B-Healthy for complete bee health support. These products can easily be added to hives without any issues from bees.
