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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.
 
#2 ·
If you put the frames into a tub of thick sugar water and let the cells fill up, they won't. You'd think they would, but they don't. You have to rain the syrup down onto the cells, otherwise surface tension keeps the cells from gaining much syrup at all.

How would you dry the water out of them?
When were you going to use them?
There are better, more practical and convenient, ways to feed. I would bother doing this.
 
#5 ·
Just guessing since I haven’t ever tried this but I think that putting either syrup or sugar into empty comb won’t speed up the delivery process. In both cases I expect that the bees will remove it and put it where they want it. Add to that the fact that they will need to add enzymes, reduce the sugars, and in the case of plain sugar they will need to add moisture as well to make it useful. Once they’ve done that they will store it as they see fit. I think delivering it in a conventional fashion will be as effective….and maybe more so.
 
#6 ·
Eastside, perform a search through Ron Householder's posts. His beesource name is Honeyhouseholder. He has a system of spraying syrup onto frames, then putting them in with packages late winter. They build up quickly enough that he splits them again in spring and uses them to harvest a honey crop. I remember that he started in a small way with a garden sprayer and now uses something larger.
Also I recall seeing a video on beesource of French Canadians with a syrup sprayer on a fixed bar; They slid the frames under the sprayer and sprayed syrup into them.
 
#8 ·
They build up quickly enough that he splits them again in spring and uses them to harvest a honey crop. I remember that he started in a small way with a garden sprayer and now uses something larger.
So I ordered 50 Nucs. The way it works is I take a deep box lid and bottom 6 frames of built comb and 1 frame of honey. They put in 3 frames of bee's and a queen. They take them to Prunes and I get the Nuc after prunes. They need the frame of honey to eat while the season starts. The more food they have the better they do. So taking 1 frame of honey and 5 frames of sugar filled comb's will give them the groceries they need to survive. I could take a frame feeder filled with crystallized syrup also. So this is one of the uses for filling frames. It is also tough to come up with 50 frames of honey needed so being able to make frames of food means I can extract the honey and not feed it back to them. Honey is worth more then sugar.
 
#7 ·
I experimented with this the other day. I used a garden sprayer hooked to a trash pump that attached to a tote of syrup. It produces quite a force. I only did 10 frames, but was quite surprised at the weight that was forced into those cells. Felt almost like a full super of honey. I put it on top of a hungry deep... so will see how it does.
 
#12 ·
>So I am thinking filling them with sugar granules and then spritzing them with water and letting it dry will do the trick. Or on my wet supers just pouring sugar on them and letting it harden will work also.

The result will be comb filled with hard sugar... not necessarily bad, but not the same thing as syrup which is also not the same thing as stores as the bees will not have inverted the sugars...

>I saw a video somewhere(probably YouTube) where the guy made something he called icing and he used a spatula to spread it into the comb.

In fully drawn plastic (PermaComb or HSC) this should work fine. In wax comb I'm afraid it would just mash the comb.
 
#13 ·
I sometime use a "frame filler" inspired from this site: (sorry french speaking)

http://www.frenchbeefarm.com/framefiller.htm

and a video

http://www.frenchbeefarm.com/video_remplisseurdecadre.html

I build my own frame filler with a plastic laundry room sink, two drilled PVC pipes an a gas motorized water pump who recirculate the syrup from the sink to the pipes. That's was working great but you need to add a good filter on the system, because the debris (bee legs, wax...) will soon block the hole in the pipe. I use an old water filtration system filled with cloths.

If you recirculate the syrup for a moment, it get hot and that create a real frenzy when you introduce filled frame in the hive. And that's true, filled frame are very heavy.

I stop using it for a few reasons:
-I used it in early spring (mid march), and here in Quebec, humidity is the main concern in spring, wasn't a good idea to introduce so much humidity in the hives.
-I feed generously at falls, so the girls doesn't need so much food in early spring.
-in that time of the year, everything is covered by snow. It's difficult to drive a truck to the field with barrels of syrup, sink gas pump etc...
-it' 1 million time more easy to carry a few pack of candy, introduce them upon ventilation hole and bring back the insulation sheet on the hive without disturbing the bees, if they need it, they will go get it.
-by filling a lot of frame from hive to hive, you get a lot of chance to spray AFB if present. A big part of the syrup sprayed on the frame is recirculating in the system.

your idea of giving them to nucs is good, but be careful if you move the hive, if shaked the syrup will flow out from the cell. I try one time to fill the frame at home and carry them to the field an I did a real mess.

this is all my experiences with frame filler, hope this will help.

Pascal Fournier
 
#15 ·
Does anyone have any idea as to what size pump is required for a setup such as the one in the French site? I read what I could from their website but there information doesn't translate to what I have in mind which is a 110 or 220 volt system using a gear pump. I have a decent size hydraulic pump that I've never run any hydraulic oil through and, being it is a gear pump, I thought I would try to make one of these frame filling units for filling comb?
Any information is greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Howard
 
#22 ·
Of course I would clean the pump prior to using it however I was looking to do this as a test. I ran water through my setup and it worked perfectly. I ended up talking to a pump manufacturing company and I ordered a food grade bronze pump that I will run with an electric motor.


Why work so hard? Filling comb with sugar or syrup is going to be messy and time consuming, just put sugar on top of the frames. The bees will liquify it and put it where they want it when they need it. Putting syrup in frames and then ito the hive will raise the humidity level resulting in more condensation. Dry sugar will reduce the condensation as well as keeping it from dripping into the hive.
Dave
I am using a saturated sugar solution and it is 67% solids. I am not worried about the humidity personally-the syrup is nearly as thick as honey.

Filling comb is an old idea, and it works pretty well as emergency feed.

It's time consuming, messy, and doesn't work all that much better than a candy board, but it is easier for the bees to get to the syrup. Probably only possible to fill one side properly, it will spill out if you flip the comb over.

There is no need to worry about inverting the syrup, the bees can use sucrose just fine. They make honey by inverting the sucrose because it stays liquid better for winter storage, but filling comb with syrup is emergency feed, not overwinter prep!

Peter
So far I feel like the filling of frames is not going to be nearly as messy as spraying. The vat I will dip the frames in is fairly deep. I have it setup with the two spray bars about 4" apart so there will be no flipping the frames-just dip up & down a couple of times.
Thanks-Howard
 
#17 ·
Why work so hard? Filling comb with sugar or syrup is going to be messy and time consuming, just put sugar on top of the frames. The bees will liquify it and put it where they want it when they need it. Putting syrup in frames and then ito the hive will raise the humidity level resulting in more condensation. Dry sugar will reduce the condensation as well as keeping it from dripping into the hive.
Dave
 
#20 ·
Oh, duh to me, I read the Post you were replkying to and I see he has a hydraulic pump. Thanks. I should go back to work.

By the way, Kelley Co had a frame filler device which one could pull behind ones truck which sprayed syrup into combs. Look it up.
 
#21 ·
Filling comb is an old idea, and it works pretty well as emergency feed.

It's time consuming, messy, and doesn't work all that much better than a candy board, but it is easier for the bees to get to the syrup. Probably only possible to fill one side properly, it will spill out if you flip the comb over.

There is no need to worry about inverting the syrup, the bees can use sucrose just fine. They make honey by inverting the sucrose because it stays liquid better for winter storage, but filling comb with syrup is emergency feed, not overwinter prep!

Peter
 
#36 ·
White sugar is fine for bees, other sugars are suspect, although HFCS is OK so long as it's in good shape. It's what honey is made of, mostly, before the bees convert nectar into honey.

Far better to feed them white sugar if they need it than let them starve, I say.

Peter
 
#37 ·
I saw a video some using a squeeze bottle and spraying the sugar water into the cells, made it look easy and not too messy, I might give it a try some time.

I use white sugar, I might use HFCS if it was cheaper. but once you figure the water weight and I think the only way to get HFCS cheap is buy in commercial quantities. White sugar in commercial quanities is also alot cheaper.

There is an interesting study on this site about bee fed sugar, HFCS and grape syrup.
"Caged bees survived longest on sucrose syrup"
So it apears that white sugar is better for bees then honey.

http://www.beesource.com/resources/...rup-as-maintenance-food-for-caged-honey-bees/

http://www.beesource.com/resources/...n-selecting-sugars-for-feeding-to-honey-bees/
 
#38 ·
I use white sugar, I might use HFCS if it was cheaper. but once you figure the water weight and I think the only way to get HFCS cheap is buy in commercial quantities. White sugar in commercial quanities is also alot cheaper.
It takes approx. $1500 for me to make up a tote of sugar syrup, whereas I can buy a tote of HFCS for aprox. $750 (275 gal). I am sure there are places where commercial sugar can be purchased, but the labor factor is pretty big.
 
#39 ·
all about the money ..you should try thinking like a bee,do they make honey or sugar water.

to protect the bee, money is not the answer,giving them the proper food is and there environment is

if the bees make honey out of sugar water,it is not true honey from flowers is it? then they store it and eat it for winter, were is all the nutrients ?there is none ,so there immune system gets weak and than they die.

not good for the bee feeding them junk food ,just like a human
 
#40 ·
all about the money ..
Money is something few of us can do without, including beez4life.

You can see at his site below that he certainly is not giving away his own products.
http://www.beez4life.com/

And just in case you didn't get the message earlier, this is from his home page.
To preserve the immune system of the bee we only feed them their own honey (NOT TOXIC WHITE SUGAR). Sugar is void of any nutrition and contains bleach and chemicals, that wreak havoc on their immune system, decreasing their ability to fight off dis-ease and viruses and in our opinion weaken the hive.
http://www.beez4life.com/
 
#44 ·
All about the money? Well yea! This beez4life guy sells a single hive (2 mediums) of bees for $785.... That's the highest price I ever heard of.... sounds like someone else is all about the money.
I guess we had better stop giving our bees away Herb. Next season my nucs will be for sale at $400.00 each, but only because I am in it for the bees and not the money. Which will be evident by the number I sell. lol
 
#46 ·
Hey thanks alot for looking at my websight,my products are the best...just keep on feeding your white sugar and watch your hives die ...
Its too bad that your marketing skills aren't a little better. As the saying goes, "it's easier to attract bees with honey than with vinegar". :scratch:

What is the point of insulting potential customers? Put a little more effort into polishing your website, correcting spelling errors, and tone down the rhetoric, and you might sell more ...
 
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