Beesource Beekeeping Forums banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

Does feeding lead to lazy bees?

54K views 307 replies 50 participants last post by  AR Beekeeper 
#1 ·
I think way too much feeding goes on now days.... When I started 25 years ago you almost never heard of people feeding their bees... They got the syrup that was left in the package after shipment and that was it... I am still of the opinion that the left over syrup is all they need to get started. Now days people feed, feed, feed.... Then wonder why their hives do not produce surplus honey? It is because they don't have to collect nectar so why should they? If you stop feeding your dog it is going to go out and get what it needs to survive.

I was looking back at some of the old threads on the forum and came across one of the early posts about feeding dry sugar by MT Camp. That was back in Nov 2004 and he referred to it as "emergency feeding". And that is what it should be, for emergencies... You have a bad nectar year and just need to get the bees through the winter, or you have a poor producer and want to get the resources through so you can give them a better queen come spring, so you put a feeder in, throw some dry sugar on, lay some fondant on the hive. If you put a feeder on in August of course the fall flow is going to look lousy, the bees are not going to go out and get it.

The goal should be to propagate the most productive hives and the ones that can winter with the least resources. Not Feed them so they survive regardless of production and resource consumption.
 
See less See more
#2 ·
Sometimes package bees don't need fed right out of the cage, if there is plenty of pollen and nectar coming in, but what if the weather is bad when you install them, and they can't fly for a week or so, which is common for people who get early packages in my area in April or even into May sometimes. Not feeding in that situation just stalls their buildup, or worse. Personally, JMO, I don't think feeding makes the bees lazy, to them syrup is just as good as nectar if they don't have to work that hard for it. If you cut off the syrup, they'll go get nectar if they can fly. I think staying ahead of the bees needs (by feeding) is more important than trying to keep them from being lazy. If you want bees to build up steadily, they need constant food coming in, either artificial or natural.
 
#3 ·
Some of the developing genetics for mite resistance may be counterproductive for honey. I am raising predominately Carniolan bees and with the cold and wet weather here they appear to have virtually shut down brooding. Most are splits that would not have gotten up to a 2 deep hive weight of 90 lbs ( no honey taken and virtually zero mite fall). Last year unless you made some bad decisions you could have taken honey and not had to feed. I dont know if I have an alternative to feeding some years but I am in a very different climate to yours.

Probably with sugar being relatively cheap and honey prices high, people are making an economic decision. Perhaps too there might be a connection that characteristics of todays typical bee is being skewed toward what is good for polination rather than being an easy winter keeper.

Edit, JMGI, I started my post before seeing yours; I don't think you can make bees lazy by feeding either, but if there is no forage............ it is like the old saying "you cant get pants off a bare arth"
 
#4 ·
It has been my experience that bees will abandon syrup for nectar when the nectar is produced in amounts that meet their requirements. Bees being fed syrup continue to forage, both for nectar and for pollen.

Bees will reduce brood rearing when the honey stores are reduced below about 20 pounds, and most managers try to keep at least enough to maintain brood production. Naturally, a colony can become honey bound from overfeeding and stop foraging and/or swarm , but that is because a beekeeper made a management error and not because of lazy bees. If bees have storage space and the nectar is present in sufficient quanity they will collect it.
 
#5 ·
I will defer to the father of modern beekeeping: " The feeding of bees resembles the noxious influences under which the children of the rich are reared." LL Langstroth.

Any experience beekeeper will agree that honey production and hive densities per yard are declining. Many say it is the loss of good habitat and forage. It quite possibly is a result of our feeding habits. Brother Adam experimented with what he called the "American Italian" bees. His comments where that they were generally lazy and didn't produce honey, in his words they were "the poorest example of a honey bee he ever saw" While I agree that breeding for pollination may be a contributing factor, the practice of pollination requires feeding regularly and likely that is also contributing to the degradation of our bees. It is hard to gauge and breed for production if all hives are fed across the board.

Brother Adam did feed, but he fed specific amounts at specific times of the year. If I recall correctly all hives got 6 L of syrup on Oct 1st. He developed a measurable calculated system that worked for his area and that is what we all should strive towards.
 
#10 ·
Any experience beekeeper will agree that honey production and hive densities per yard are declining. Many say it is the loss of good habitat and forage. It quite possibly is a result of our feeding habits.
I guess you and I don't have the same experiences, because I have not noticed hive densities declining. Commercial yds I am aware of are of the same size as they were 20 years ago.

Laziness is a human trait which we should not attribute to honeybees. It's an unfitting anthropomorphism.
 
#16 ·
Bees should have needed feeding more so in Langstroths time than now. They were not adapted to the native fauna and the introduced plant species they were used to were far less wide spread over what they are today, with many being invasive.
 
#7 ·
Well Bluegrass if you can figure it out, (a measurable calculated feeding system that worked for everone's specific area) I'm sure the world will beat a path to your door. Many of us have been striving towards it but I for one sure as heck didn't see this one coming.
 
#8 ·
The goal should be to propagate the most productive hives and the ones that can winter with the least resources. Not Feed them so they survive regardless of production and resource consumption.
Are we to allow our least productive colonies perish then? Or should we feed those lazy, lazy bees and re-queen them next year with better stock?
 
#12 ·
Like I said in the first post, feed as an emergency measure, many are not doing that anymore, but are feeding just to feed. The Migrators feed all the time, bee producers feed all the time, now the sideliners and hobby guys are also starting to feed all the time.

I thought I would see you at the Tunbridge fair this year, stopped by the booth, but didn't see you.
 
#9 ·
Im probably not experienced enough to be in this thread but it won't be the first time i have been where Im not supposed to be. I think how you feed has a lot to do with it. from what i have seen with the hive top feeders will make them back fill and just set there and be lazy if they don't swarm. I ran into that this year i fed some splits and they would just back fill and not draw comb or anything. I started open feeding and now they are starting to build. I think if its coming from inside or on top of the hive the house bees just move it around and the field bees just set there because they don't have to do anything. Imo it could be bread into them not to have as many nectar foragers if they have a constant food source in hive long enough. Look at people. :D
 
#13 ·
Yes i totally agree with that and once i get to a number of hives that i can afford the losses i will not feed at all unless i do something to put them at a disadvantage. I was just putting my observation out there. I like these type posts. I can learn a lot from others disagreeing. My point was the way i feed i think has a lot to do with what they do with it i am talking about splits and swarms not big established hives. Imo a good big hive shouldn't need feeding unless i do something like taking to much off or splitting to late.
 
#15 ·
once again we are assigning human qualities to bugs... You assume a bug can get lazy..... They forage less than 2 weeks.... and once you have a few hives for a length of time you realize bees will take the most valuable forage. If there is nectar flowing foragers will ignore your feed.
If your hive is a dink and foragers are not returning with goods, food in the hive can allow younger non foragers to access it, and build the hive strength up.

Feed or not, its your choice. but don't be silly enough to think you taught them a bad habit.. there are in no way lazy becuase of food.
 
#18 ·
Some food for thought:

When I started doing cutouts 10 or so years ago one thing I started to notice is that even in the worst of seasons when all hives are on welfare; feral hives are full of honey. Maybe they are good robbers, or maybe they are better foragers.
 
#31 · (Edited)
Not to start this debate again, but from a scientific standpoint honey bees are domesticated and have been since the Pharos started selectively breeding them for honey production. Your analogy is flawed and can be applied to anything. I once knew a guy who was killed by his Jersey bull, I guess cattle are not domesticated... etc. I think of bees like Reindeer. Reindeer are domesticated, they have been bred to produce milk for Laplander's and pull sleds for 1000s of years. But the North American Caribou is the same species as the reindeer, only not domesticated... not selectively bred for certain characteristics. And if you put a caribou next to a reindeer there is a visual difference between them even though they are the same deer.

In New York it is illegal to possess live wild animals without a permit... so you are either breaking the law or the state considers your bees domesticated.

Shoot. I was there from 5-7 on Saturday evening.
I went on Friday to see the tractors pull. I was going to go again on Saturday, but didn't get around to it.
 
#25 ·
For some curious reason, the only cutouts I've done, or other's I know, have done, were active, living colonies, not those that had starved to death, or been robbed out by the survivors.

Thinking of the Langstroth quote, in post #5. I think he would have a slightly different opinion, if he had been keeping bees in Tucson, Arizona.

Around here, when nectar is available, my bees will ignore sugar syrup (of whatever strength), left out for them to rob. And they will take it very slowly, or not at all, from internal feeders.

When feed is unnecessary, I try to avoid feeding. Though, if I wan't ready to feed, at a moment's notice, and did fail to do so, I would only be known, as the beekeeper without any bees.
 
#26 ·
Feeding Goals in Honey Bee Management.
1. feed to achieve a good winter cluster.
2. feed to sell bulk bees.
3. feed to recuperate population losses due to pesticide kill.
4. feed for queen acceptance
5.feed to draw out new foundation.
6. feed to get certain medications into the hive population.
7. feed to offset the lack of precipitation.
8. feed for winter weight.
9. Do not feed if you are blessed with excellent honey and wintering locations.
10. feed to make pollination frame counts.
11. other.
 
#30 ·
The goal should be to propagate the most productive hives and the ones that can winter with the least resources. Not Feed them so they survive regardless of production and resource consumption.
So is your point, if they don't make it on their own let them starve? Because that seems to be what you are saying. Why do we see our bees differently than the way any other farmer sees his livestock?
 
#32 ·
Why do we see our bees differently than the way any other farmer sees his livestock?
Why do we? Why do we buy incomplete nutrition to give them when all other livestock have balanced feeds available to them? If I fed a dairy cow just timothy grass all summer and timothy hay all winter, she would stop producing milk, get sick and die. A cow needs varied grasses for the different nutritional elements they offer. In farming we make up for the deficit by feeding supplemental mixed feeds and silage with the grass and hay. Why do we think bees are different and can survive on just cane sugar?
 
#33 ·
So, you are actually bemoaning the lack of discussion of feeding protien substitute too?

What is the part of the nectar gathered by bees and is used by bees that is missing from supplementally fed syrup, be it syrup made from cane sugar or corn syrup?
 
#36 ·
bluegrass,
seems to me I recall starting a Thread asking some of the same questions. Why are we seeing more syrup feeding than in past years? I'm sure Rader can find that Thread.

A while ago a friend of mine and I were chatting about the current state of beekeeping as compared to "the old days". He has been at this almost 50 years. We were talking about folks who do a lot of pollinating. It occured to me that some folks are actually keeping Pollenbees and others are keeping Honeybees.

If feeding bees makes them lazy, then why do they do such a good job in apple orchards and almond groves, etc, etc.
 
#38 ·
bluegrass,

A while ago a friend of mine and I were chatting about the current state of beekeeping as compared to "the old days". He has been at this almost 50 years. We were talking about folks who do a lot of pollinating. It occured to me that some folks are actually keeping Pollenbees and others are keeping Honeybees.

If feeding bees makes them lazy, then why do they do such a good job in apple orchards and almond groves, etc, etc.
Because they can't rear brood on sugar water, they need pollen. As you know Apples do not really give them much in the way of nectar, it is primarily a pollen source which is why they pollinate them.

I don't think we are really keeping different bees. The Commercial pollinators requeen their hives every single year. They do not raise the queens themselves, but buy them from queen producers. The queen producers are not in the migratory pollination business and they also sell queens to people who are in the honey business so they are selecting for production, not pollination... The activities of one groups impacts the entire industry.
 
#37 ·
My five hives are all from swarms. It is very interesting to watch how they expand or not. I have fed, but not that much. The way I look at it, I have given them a little better chance of survival than sitting on a branch somewhere or maybe even a wall cavity. If I don't feed and they don't survive, I will attribute it to a not very productive queen or bad genes or whatever. And there is always the thought that these aren't true "feral" colonies. They may have come from some package colony down they road. Right now, I have really strong hives and some barely getting by. There very well may be some robbing going on, I'm not sure, but so far, this has really been a good learning experience for me. As you can tell from my post number, I am no expert and haven't been on this board very long, but man have I learned a lot!! I am very appreciative of all the knowledge on this board and enjoy reading.
 
#40 ·
I think way too much feeding goes on now days.... When I started 25 years ago you almost never heard of people feeding their bees... They got the syrup that was left in the package after shipment and that was it... I am still of the opinion that the left over syrup is all they need to get started. Now days people feed, feed, feed.... Then wonder why their hives do not produce surplus honey? It is because they don't have to collect nectar so why should they?
Assuming this is true, then the question becomes "why do you think it is that collectively all beekeepers have decided to do "way too much feeding"? I think we can eliminate the following.
A: feeding is fun
B: feeding is cheap
Theories?
 
#47 ·
"why do you think it is that collectively all beekeepers have decided to do "way too much feeding"? I think we can eliminate the following.
A: feeding is fun
B: feeding is cheap
Theories?
On a commercial pollination level feeding is necessary to remain competitive and keep the good contracts.
On a hobby level people feed to much because the first advice they get from the bee club or who ever else they ask about starting out is to feed, feed feed. A secondary element is that they are afraid their bees will die if they don't feed, but they are not taught how to evaluate the need for feed, just told to feed.

Getting back to Mark's question: Be the change you want to see in the world. Think globally act locally. A good start would be at home. I am sure as a commercial guy and due to the cost of HFCS you feed as little as possible. You and Mike are probably exceptions to the rule because the syrup cuts into your bottom line. Many are feeding as much as the hives will take.... filling them with 100 lbs of syrup. Over generations the bees will get used to that surplus. Over time I am sure that it has impacted their ability to put up surplus honey. For many hobbyists it is hard to break the ties from the commercial side, we depend on commercially produced bees to repopulate winter dieouts. New beeks are dependent on the package industry because that is the only way demand can be met.

I think we need to organize into a group that works together with a common goal of propagating genetically diverse, productive bees. I am currently working on a queen exchange program that I hope to have up and running by next spring. Instead of buying mass produced queens where they all have been selected from one or two hives and are sisters, we breed queens among our selves and exchange them to improve genetic diversity in your own yards. for example: I want some queens from you so I purchase a credit and get the queens, you ship the queens so you receive a credit. Then you want queens from somebody else so you use your credit to get your queens, now they have a credit. etc.
 
#41 · (Edited)
For me, it is simply easier to do beekeeping with bees than without bees.

My first decade, beekeeping, back here in the desert Southwest. I did little more than create walk-away splits (starting with one cutout), and occasionally harvest a few frames of honey. I did no feeding, and very little colony manipulation (other than the splits). I also believe I could still maintain colonies in this same fashion (without feeding). However, I now, regularly. produce nucs and raise queens. These additional manipulations seem to interfere with most colonies abilities to collect sufficient surplus to remain entirely independent. After all, I'm robbing them regularly of brood, nurse bees, pollen, and honey. Nucs and queens need these resources, or I couldn't produce them. If I weren't frequently robbing colonies with resources, and using those resources to create nucs and queens, I would likely be able to produce more honey and feed less (or not at all). And I wouldn't characterize or anthropomorphize my bees, as lazy, since they're doing much more work for me, than if I just left them alone and managed them for a honey crop.
 
#49 ·
Now that you link it I do remember that thread. I had to read through and make sure I was being consistent with this one... Sometimes I change my mind more often than my underwear. It is 2 years old so it is time to discuss the topic again... Though I am more interested in if anybody else thinks that excessive feeding might lead to poor production?
 
#46 ·
The question isn't how many trace minerals are contained in honey. The question I am asking is why, collectively, would beekeepers change their management philosophies in the past 25 years. I'm not getting an answer to that one either.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top