"SugarBags" feeding sugar from the bag.

**sqkcrk** · 12-18-2012, 07:52 AM

Originally Posted by BeeCurious

The "Mountain Camp" method is what Johannson had done 26 years before...

Then shouldn't it be named for the first person noted? Not that it really matters. Just making a point. I call it dry sugar feeding. Most of the beekeepers I talk to don't know what Mountain Camp Method of dry sugar feeding means. But dry sugar feeding pretty much explains itself.

**Lauri** · 12-18-2012, 08:48 AM

I like cider vinegar instead of water to acidify the sugar. ( If you watch the 'How it's Made -Sugar", you'll see them add lime to make the sugar slurry more alkaline)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIgavNuBRRA

( 3 cups vinegar to a shy quart to 25# sugar) I also add a few drops of lemongrass oil and a sprinkle of electrolytes. It's just in Case the hives get low on stores..I put a scoop or brick on every hive that isn't super heavy. The bees love it and eat it even when they have plenty of stores. Maybe unnecessary, but it makes me feel good. I make bricks that weigh about 5 #-dry them overnight in my Cabelas food dehydrator and store them..ready for an unseasonably warm day I can open hives and slip them in. These little pans were from the dollar store and are just the right size.

I am in my fleece pajamas...LOL Just ran out to take a photo in the greenhouse so you can see.

These large pans work well, but they take a couple weeks to dry sitting out in the air.
These are sprinkled with dry bee pro:

If you do it in a big pan, DON'T forget to cut into blocks when it is soft!
I did feed syrup August and Sept., but we had a warm late fall and some of the hives and nucs got a bit on the light side

They'll eat it at some point. I really don't care when they do. Just glad it's there when they want it. I don't mind the little bit of fuss ether. After being so busy with bees this summer, it shut off in a hurry and I miss it a bit.

If I put the moistened mix right in the hive, I use 3 cups vinegar to 25# fine sugar. Mix it in a 5 gallon bucket with paint mixer paddle and 1/2 drill. It is dry feeling and very soft. I scoop it onto newspaper right on top the frames. But be sure to have a good top entrance to let moisture escape and only apply it if the weather will be mild for a few days. I never have any problem with moisture and in a week it is pretty solid. When I dry bricks I use a quart of vinegar to 25# sugar. It is still quite dry, but will compact well in the trays. I will always sprinkle the top with dry bee pro. . It's funny, most of the bees near the top on warm days are small very young bees, They are all over it and very excited.

Here's a typical double nuc I put sugar on recently. Both the bottom and top box's are occupied with the cluster and the hive lifted too easily for my taste. I removed the old pollen patty, laid newspaper on the top bars, piled the slightly moistened sugar mix, inverted the top inner cover to accomodate the pile and put the lid back on..now it's ready to be left alone for a few winter months and I won't have to worry. (Remember, this was a fairly warm day and the bees were active)

**BeeCurious** · 12-18-2012, 09:16 AM

and a sprinkle of electrolytes

Have you considered using Brawndo? It has what bees need.

Are you placing the sugar over inner covers?

Thanks for the pics (and the running to the greenhouse image)

**Lauri** · 12-18-2012, 09:36 AM

Sugar is right on the top bars. My screened inner covers are homemade so I have lots of room for feed. 3/4" on one side, 2 1/2" other if I invert it.
I've never heard of Brawndo, where can I find info? Thanks

(October photo)

Heres the electrolytes I like

get them from Valleyvet.com

If I was going to do the 5# bags like in the OP, I'd mix the electrolytes in the cider vinegar (It will fizz) mix and dump in the bag. I wouldn't personally do it that way though. I don't like the idea of all that empty room over the hive that would allow heat to rise so far above the cluster. You could covered the bag of sugar with a quilt, but why not just dump on the top bars and have less height?

**BeeCurious** · 12-18-2012, 10:01 AM

"Brawndo" is from a stupid movie... Do a search

It's nice that you haven't see it...

**minz** · 12-18-2012, 01:41 PM

Brawndo
it's like shaving your chest with a lawnmower! that sounds dangerous, but it's not more dangerous than drinking BRAWNDO because drinking BRAWNDO is like riding a pony, which probably sounds not dangerous except that the pony is 300 feet tall and covered in chainsaws! and to get on the pony, you have to take an elevator filled with 16 live cougars, which is an actual sport in latin america, which is extremely fun, but not as fun as BRAWNDO because BRAWNDO is like driving an ice cream truck full of angry bees through a petting zoo, which is a great way of becoming popular if you want to become popular with LAW ENFORCEMENT but if you don't, you should still drink BRAWNDO because BRAWNDO will make you use your fists for everyday tasks, like watching tv or romance or helicopter maintainence! it will also make you more awesome at english, which means you can use apostrophes whenever 'you w'an't to', even in words like 'nuclear', which don't even have an apostrophe yet!
BRAWNDO: It's Got What Plants CRAVE!!!

**dnichols** · 03-16-2013, 07:45 AM

Originally Posted by BeeCurious

The "Mountain Camp" method is what Johannson had done 26 years before...

Haha I read the old thread about "mountain camp". Hey I think I will start a new method "Dnichols Sugar Bag method".

No I wouldn't do that.

**Michael Palmer** · 03-16-2013, 08:32 AM

Originally Posted by BeeCurious

26 years before Mountain Camp "Johannson" was pouring sugar over newsprint on topbars.

A rose by any other name smells just as sweet.

Is it Mountain Camp or Johannson? Well...

[I]ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture/I], The A.I. Root Co., 1974, p. 284

"The writer remembers how in the early '70s A.I. Root fed coffee A sugar which is almost the same thing as our granulated white sugar. Here is what he said of it in Gleanings in Bee Culture for 1876, page 52.

We prefer loaf sugar or that sold at the grocers as "crushed sugar" for all purposes for feeding, and the process is so simple that we hardly know how to give the directions. If you wish to feed for stimulating, the least trouble is to put the lumps of sugar in the open air-protected from rain-but if you do not wish to feed your neighbor's bees, put the sugar on top of the frames under the quilt. In cold weather you must be careful to put the sugar directly over the cluster of bees or they can not get it; if the space under the cover is not large enough to admit the supply you give at once, put on an extra hoop.

**Acebird** · 03-16-2013, 09:35 AM

Originally Posted by Michael Palmer

In cold weather you must be careful to put the sugar directly over the cluster of bees or they can not get it;

How does this work? If you put the sugar on top of the cluster it will be under the honey in the fall. Will they eat the sugar and then move up to the honey or just ignore the sugar and go right up to the honey. Once they are above the sugar I don't think they will go back down to get it. Is that correct?

**BeeCurious** · 03-16-2013, 09:56 AM

Originally Posted by Acebird

How does this work? If you put the sugar on top of the cluster it will be under the honey in the fall. Will they eat the sugar and then move up to the honey or just ignore the sugar and go right up to the honey. Once they are above the sugar I don't think they will go back down to get it. Is that correct?

If someone is placing sugar, fondant, or candy on hives there normally will not be any honey super in place.

**Acebird** · 03-16-2013, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by BeeCurious

If someone is placing sugar, fondant, or candy on hives there normally will not be any honey super in place.

Can't I go back to posts in the fall and find many people feeding these items? Are you saying there is no honey in the hive in the fall and people are doing this out of desperation to try and get through winter?
Or is this strictly emergency feeding in late winter or early spring where the bees would be right on the cover anyway?

I have a hive that I know is light and one that died out. I don't know if the light hive would be helped or hindered by using the honey frames from the dead hive because of the poop on the frames. We hit a cold crappy spell of weather right now so this won't be done for another week. Would the extra honey just induce brood rearing and cause starvation anyway?

**julysun** · 03-16-2013, 11:54 AM

Originally Posted by Vance G

I personally like dried sugar or sugar bricks better than syrup in my operation. It is an insurance policy on top of any colony not weighing a safe amount. It is easily refilled at anytime during the winter that lasts forever. In the spring the sugar is easily removed because it is all turned into a sugar cube. Then it is easily turned into syrup when weather makes syrup usable by the bees. A lot of ways of doing things.

I like it! Now to work out how on a TBH.