View Full Version : Feeding sugar in the frame
Has anyone tried filling an empty frame with table sugar and feeding to the bees. Is placement on newspaper better?
dug_6238
12-06-2008, 11:54 AM
One person mentioned the idea of using a frame with a candy board molded into it. One could possibly slip one of these in beside a cluster that was out of food, and they might move over onto it, but I don't know if they'd cluster onto it - I'd imagine that it woudln't be able to transfer heat quite as well as regular comb does. The edge of the cluster might go onto it though. Slipping one into the center of a cluster would spell its doom though.
Interesting idea, could be tried but one would have to be careful with it. I don't think it would last long enough if it was made of just sugar though, and I don't think there's be a way to get it to stay in the frame unless you cooked it into a candy board.
One downside would be that once it's eaten, there'd be a void left where it was and this leaves no way for the bees to cluster there. If anyone does or has tried it, post some results and some pictures.
Dug,
I have tried filling a comb with granulated sugar and that part works well. I figure a full depth frame would hold around 5 lbs of sugar which might be more than I could fit on a sheet of newspaper (not sure). We still have day time temps in the 50's so I think they could get to the sugar. I just hate to do it and find out later that there was something obvious that I missed. I plan on adding the frame of sugar to nucs I started too late in the season. I think I can get a lot more sugar in a full depth frame than on top of a nuc (5 frame).
dug_6238
12-06-2008, 12:53 PM
Take some pics and let us know how it goes if you do decide to go that way. I've used newspaper on the top bars with good success but would like to hear if you do well with a loaded frame.
Are you using wax comb or plastic?
Wax.
I have also tried making a big vat of syrup and pumping it into frames which worked great, but I think the syrup dissolved some indigestibles in the cells and gave the bee the squirts. The granular sugar shouldn't have that problem.
RayMarler
12-06-2008, 01:44 PM
Puting dry sugar on newspaper on the top of hive serves a couple purposes. One is the food stores, which your filling the frame of comb method might do well. The other purpose would be to absorb moisture in in the hive from condensation of heated air in the cold temps in winter, which your sugar in the comb method would not do near as well. It's food for thought tho and I may try your idea next spring.
France
12-06-2008, 02:18 PM
Best way and responsible way for a beekeeper is that he/she leaves enough stores in the hive for the bees to survive without problems through winter. If stiling too much, or bees did not gather enough, the only way to emergency feed is to give them dry sugar on top of the frames and hope for the best.
Any "playing" with sugar-water in winter is asking for trouble!
Bees are in a cluster, if cold enough. Disturbing and even puling out or adding frames near or in the cluster will do them in and the problems with lack of food are over.
In winter bees need to be left alone! Do what is required in and at proper time - but leave them alone in winter!
Besides, if feeding sugar water in winter? I don't know why I discus it? It just don't make any sense.
Bees must be able to fly to get rid of water - to rework the sugar-water so that is good for winter feed.
In temperatures below 50 bees wont touch sugar-water. It may work in areas with warm temperatures, but than we are not really talking about feeding in winter, are we? Temps where bees fly and even gather something are winter only on calendar and is not winter in a real physical sense. Like something that will freeze ones ear off, or something you can throw over the fence with a snow-shovel? :)
France
12-06-2008, 02:30 PM
oops...
Than the question was not really about feeding in the winter, was it?
I perhaps jumped the gun a little, cause we are in winter ( wife is shoveling the white stuff right now)
Well now, if question/thoughts are about other times of the year, than there are appropriate ways to feed ones bees and my previous post should be disregarded. (But it will come handy to those who do have light hives just about now.)
mike haney
12-06-2008, 03:00 PM
never mind the bees- i want your advice on how to get a wife to shovel snow! mine says half the housework is mine and everything outside the door! LOL:)
drobbins
12-06-2008, 03:03 PM
I've been playing around with some HSC, the plastic, fully drawn frames you can buy. The bees don't take to it so well so one trick I used is to fill the frames with sugar, wet them down with water, then put a box full of these frame on top of the hive for winter. I had pretty good luck with the bees moving up into this box over winter, eating the sugar, then using the box for brood come spring
your mileage may vary
Dave
France
12-06-2008, 06:25 PM
heeee, yeah... first you got to get them before they start showing their teeth... :lookout:
No seriously, she's been shoveling for over 30 years now - so I guess it is no use to quit now? The stranger part is, that I have a snow-blower but don't get to use it much. She gets up at 5 in the morning and by the time I get up at 8 she is already done. She also shovels our sons driveway and cleans and scrapes the car's windows.
It all started with a back injury some time back. . . :shhhh:
never mind the bees- i want your advice on how to get a wife to shovel snow! mine says half the housework is mine and everything outside the door! LOL:)
heeee, yeah... first you got to get them before they start showing their teeth... :lookout:
No seriously, she's been shoveling for over 30 years now - so I guess it is no use to quit now? The stranger part is, that I have a snow-blower but don't get to use it much. She gets up at 5 in the morning and by the time I get up at 8 she is already done. She also shovels our sons driveway and cleans and scrapes the car's windows.
It all started with a back injury some time back. . . :shhhh:
Would you rent her out?:)
IndianaHoney
12-06-2008, 08:38 PM
As for the sugar, just put it on the newspaper. I do that, and my bees actually move it down and store it in their comb. I just opened a hive today to see if they needed more sugar, and a nice hole in the center of the sugar pile gave me a clear view of granulated sugar that they stored in the cells. The bees do all the work, and you don't have to risk their survival by disturbing them.
A little side note on the newspaper method. Someone mentioned that if you place the newspaper on the top bars, then the shallow or medium, and there is any newspaper hanging out, it will wick moisture into the hive. I had put my sugar on before that was mentioned, so I tried to just remove any that was hanging out. Well, I found out that if just the edge of the paper is exposed, it will still wick moisture in. The way to solve this is to put the empty super on, then put the paper on. When you are done, all the paper should be inside that empty super.
I tried the in-frame sugar feeding which was easy to set up but I don't think the frames took nearly as much weight of sugar as I had hoped. I will weigh a frame with/without sugar and see. The newspaper approach might work just as well and would be faster.
France
12-07-2008, 01:38 PM
I am of the opinion that the best way to place the paper is to have it about half to one inch smaller in the front, where the upper entrance is and perhaps on left and right side. On he back side is actually better if paper is right to the hive wall - it will prevent any cross ventilation that might blow over the cluster, since the chimney effect is actually restricted by arrangement on the top bars.
Such an arrangement will not cut off the ventilation and the bees have room and a place to get to the sugar.
Michael Bush
12-07-2008, 07:01 PM
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/SugarFeedingSide.jpg
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/SugarFeedingSide.jpg
How much sugar does that photo represent? Do you have much history with this technique - has it failed and, if so, why? I like this approach but am wondering if there are any downsides.
Michael Bush
12-08-2008, 05:17 AM
>How much sugar does that photo represent?
I pulled the empty frames (one two or three) and filled the empty space with sugar. I didn't weigh it.
> Do you have much history with this technique
This is the second year I've done it.
> - has it failed and, if so, why?
The bees will eat the sugar when they run out of stores. I do it in nucs so sometimes the nucs fail because they dwindle down too low and we get a hard freeze (-20 F or so) for a couple of weeks.
> I like this approach but am wondering if there are any downsides.
You have to get those frames back in the spring before they build comb there. :)
tecumseh
12-08-2008, 05:58 AM
hvh writes:
I have also tried making a big vat of syrup and pumping it into frames which worked great, but I think the syrup dissolved some indigestibles in the cells and gave the bee the squirts.
tecumseh:
sounds like you may have another problem here. just don't sound quite right.
at one time (this has been a number of years back) we fed granulated sugar as emergency feed using serveral techniques. we ran 9 frames (top to bottom) so 'typically' we would shove the frames to one side of the box and pour in a 5 pound bag. some time we had old frame feeder and we would use these to hold the sugar. the bee supply houses had plastic bags about the size of a deep brood frame and sometimes we would use these.
I would not recommend 'granulated sugar' for anything besides an emergency ration. At the first hint of sping a hive would typically kick all the remaining white stuff out the front door.
tecumseh
12-08-2008, 05:59 AM
hvh writes:
I have also tried making a big vat of syrup and pumping it into frames which worked great, but I think the syrup dissolved some indigestibles in the cells and gave the bee the squirts.
tecumseh:
sounds like you may have another problem here. just don't sound quite right.
at one time (this has been a number of years back) we fed granulated sugar as emergency feed using serveral techniques. we ran 9 frames (top to bottom) so 'typically' we would shove the frames to one side of the box and pour in a 5 pound bag. some time we had old frame feeder and we would use these to hold the sugar. the bee supply houses had plastic bags about the size of a deep brood frame and sometimes we would use these.
I would not recommend 'granulated sugar' for anything besides an emergency ration. At the first hint of sping a hive will typically kick all the remaining white stuff out the front door.
sqkcrk
12-08-2008, 09:51 AM
Feeding dry sugar in a frame is a waste of time, imo. It's hard to get much into it and the bees won't necessarily take it when they need it.
Yes, feeding w/ newspaper on top of the frames is better.
I have fed corn syrup by showering it into combs. You can actually get quite a bit of syrup into a frame and then put it right next to your cluster. It's messy and time consuming, but it works.
Lots of things work. It just depends on what you can and are willing to do.