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This has been well-covered, but it's spring and a lot of folks post about syrup mixing. Because I'm a little OCD, I sat down and tested various sugar mixes (by volume) with a hydrometer yesterday. I confirmed what beeks already know, but here it is for easy use. It's as easy to mix the three most-used concentration levels as this:
Fill half target volume with water, add sugar to target volume (for 5 gallons, start with 2.5 gallons hot H2O and pour in sugar until you have 5 gallons of syrup) = 1:1 (50% sugar)
Fill half full of sugar, add water to target volume (2.5 gallons sugar plus water to make 5 gallons syrup) = 1:2 (33% sugar)
Fill with sugar to target volume, add water to top (5 gallons hot H2O plus water to 5 gallon mark) = 2:1 (66% sugar)
All came to within 2% of the values above, well within the "error bars". As noted the bees care a LOT less and will certainly forgive several percentage points, but I love playing with hydrometers
. All were mixed with hot tap water and stirred until no solids remained.
Happy feeding.
Fill half target volume with water, add sugar to target volume (for 5 gallons, start with 2.5 gallons hot H2O and pour in sugar until you have 5 gallons of syrup) = 1:1 (50% sugar)
Fill half full of sugar, add water to target volume (2.5 gallons sugar plus water to make 5 gallons syrup) = 1:2 (33% sugar)
Fill with sugar to target volume, add water to top (5 gallons hot H2O plus water to 5 gallon mark) = 2:1 (66% sugar)
All came to within 2% of the values above, well within the "error bars". As noted the bees care a LOT less and will certainly forgive several percentage points, but I love playing with hydrometers
Happy feeding.