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Filling comb with sugar syrup.

28K views 68 replies 23 participants last post by  Ian 
#1 ·
I was thinking of taking my extracted deep frames and putting them into a tub of thick sugar water and letting the cells fill up. Then drying all the water out of them and having a solid sugar source to put into the hives that need feed. They will clean it out as they need it. Kind of a feeder. Has anyone tried this? + - of this idea.
 
#47 ·
Hey thanks doing just fine. Since you guys have been talking about me ,a client has bought out all my complete hives,thank you very much,again stop feeding white sugar very bad ,that was the point from the start ,just trying to save the bees .we all need to make money,again thanks for puting my web out there
 
#48 ·
The fact that you have sold out your overpriced complete hives only proves P.T. Barnums maxum "There's a sucker born every minute!"


This guy has 3 years of experience and he's coming on here talking like he's the 2nd coming of Brother Adam or Dadant or Langstroth??? He may have a point that honey is better nutrition than sugar or HFCS, but the point is what are you going to do to keep your bees alive if honey isn't an option? I'm a hobbyist (maybe approaching sideliner) beekeeper who tries to leave enough honey for the bees to overwinter on, but when we are hit with a drought from June to basically now that just wasn't an option was it. There is also a difference between what makes sense for a commercial beekeeper and what makes sense for someone who has a few hives in their backyard. I'm pretty sure Honeyhouseholder is real happy with his arrangement to start over every spring with new bees and not have to worry about what they are eating in the winter. Sounds like Beez4life is happy with his set up, good for him, but don't think he needs to come on here and preach with his first 10 posts 3 years into the hobby/business.
 
#49 ·
your like beaten a dead horse,I am not trying to preach anything ,my original question was why are you feeding your bees white sugar,it is so bad for them.god did not make white sugar....... again thanks for putting my sight out there.....ps you dont have a clue how long i have been keeping bees......just trying to help the bees thats all
 
#50 ·
I believe if you read every one of your Posts in this Thread it is you who is beating the deadhorse. And, unless your Profile is wrong, you started out on your own in bees in 2009. Looks like 3 years to me. If that is wrong, you need to be more truthful in your Profile. No one likes to be misled or misinformed.
 
#54 ·
White sugar (high purity sucrose) is fine for bees, it's what they get in nectar after all. HFCS is fine so long as it doesn't contain any hydroxymethylfurfural, it's very similar to honey.

You should not feed any other sugars to bees -- only high purity sucrose or inverted sugar (a mix of glucose and fructose) or pure high fructose corn syrup. Brown sugar, demerara, or other less refined sugars contain things the bees cannot digest and will give them dysentery.

Bees don't need much protein while clustered until they raise new brood, but they do need a carbohydrate source to provide energy to heat the cluster during winter. How much more "natural" can you get than what plants produce -- sucrose!

Peter
 
#61 ·
Thanks Rod for dragging me into this. B4life should know white sugar is better for your bees then mud. We've feed bees all kinds of things to the bees and yes they still made use a GOOD crop. One year we had a load of strawberry jam gave to us and we mixed it with HFCS. The only bad thing is we had to dump the strawberry seeds out of the feeders.:scratch: The bees ate the rest. We bought a half load of restaurant mix( sugar, salt, and pepper mixed) for $.02 a lb feed and weed killer all in one. Bees carried the salt out and killed the grass and weeds in front of the hives.:applause:
 
#62 ·
Sorry, I was just using you as the ultimate example of a successful beekeeper who has come up with a way to not have to worry about what his bees have to eat in winter. Bees what bees??? Lol As you pointed out if there is no honey for the bees (because you took it all or because of drought or who knows what) sugar or hfcs beats nothing. And you can be a purist with dead bees or a bad guy who feeds sugar in those cases. :)
 
#64 ·
12/03/2012
You can easily spray the sugar syrup into the cells with an agricultural "T" fan jet nozzle.
I cut the brass end off a new hand pump garden sprayer, soldered on a copper fitting with threads, screwed the nozzle on, pumped the pressure up a few pounds and filled the combs. You should be able to fill both sides of a deep frame with a quart of syrup per side for a total of two quarts/frame.
Good luck.
 
#65 ·
The beekeeper in the video would go out and provide a frame of syrup to his hives in the spring, replacing an empty one in the nest. The bees would use that frame of feed up immediately. He said it seemed that they would turn that frame of feed into brood. Worked very well, especially managing hives in singles, where as you do not want to douse them with a pail, and yet you still needed to get some into them.
The system has kinda gone by the way side, as it is good for a few hundred hives, so much work. Its also messy, and can create a robbing problem if not careful.
 
#66 ·
I, still for the life of me, can’t understand why anyone wants to feed bees by putting sugar syrup into comb. No matter what, the bees must remove it. If they consume it directly they remove it. If they are going to store it they must remove it. They cannot leave it in the cells as is. How can it be any simpler to fill the comb so that the bees can remove it? Practically any other sort of feeder has to be more efficient for both the bees and the keep.
 
#68 ·
the bees can access it very easily and its a great way to instantly provide feed to a hive that needs feed
I understand that you have much more experience than I do, but I still don’t see it. A division board feeder or even some type of top feeder (or even baggies, buckets, jars) will deliver as well or better. In addition the large surface area of exposed syrup increases by a huge factor the likelihood of robbing. It simply appears counterproductive from every aspect, in my opinion.
But then I suppose, like so many other things, it is something my old brain just can't grasp.
 
#69 ·
think of it this way,

In the spring, managing a 10 frame single,
the beekeeper decides to make a feed round,
not feeding to bulk the hive up so pail feeding is out of the question

the amount of work to take a frame or two out of the single to put in a feeder, to which is filled with syrup, then remove the feeder in a few days and replace with a frame is more work than if the beekeeper is to simply replace a frame in the hive with a syrup frame.

The feeding is done, the bees access the feed immediately and there is no need to come back and remove the frame feeder.

I do not use this method of feeding but know many who do. Its used for very specific feeding strategies and works very well when developing spring time hives.

a frame feeder is nice but when its only used for two weeks of the year, it basically just gets in the way and adds alot of equipment and expense for no reason,
 
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