> ... I wintered ten colonies on the dark amber honey they produced that
> year.  Another ten colonies only received cane sugar (10 gallons 2:1
> sugar/water to fill ten combs).  Both groups had ten full capped combs
> of feed by September 15.  In late February the cane fed bees were low on
> stores so I fed them another five gallons to get them through to late
> March when the weather broke.  So that was 15 gallons of syrup, plus
> labor (extracting and feeding), to equal 10 combs of dark honey.
 
Okay.  This is an interesting example, precisely because it seems to speak
volumes and yet may not really prove anything, unless we are told much
more:
 
* Were these colonies of the same stock and similar foraging history to
that point?  If so, then why did some have honey and some not?  If not,
then were some Italians and others Carniolan?  Were some larger than
others, or their constituent bees in a different nutritional state going
into the test?  Were the two groups in similar states of health?
 
* Why did the ten hives require syrup?  Did they have very little
honey/syrup at some point over the previous season?  Bees that are allowed
to run dry -- or nearly dry -- at any point are never the same and simply
will not winter well -- regardless of what feeding is done, honey or
sugar.
 
* Did the hives on honey have pollen under the honey?  Was their pollen
supply similar in source and quantity?
 
* Did they have similar *weights* going into winter, or was the 'ten
frames' a subjective measure?  The thickness of the combs -- and the
weight -- can easily be very different, depending on the circumstances
under which they are filled, and appear similar.
 
* Were the *combs* in each hive the same condition and did they have a
have similar history?  I.e. had they been occupied by healthy, productive
bees, or had they been in storage or been used as extracting combs?  We
find that dry combs or extracting super combs are very poor to try to
winter bees on in the first year, until they have been occupied by strong
bees for at least a season.
 
Every year we make up hives from nucs plus odd combs and bees from the
windows of our honey house and feed them up.  Invariably they do poorly
compared to the bees that have been established a season.  They say that
wintering begins in the spring and they are right.  About that anyhow.  In
fact such hives accounted for the several I reported in poor condition in
my last post.
 
Comment: We have found that starting feeding syrup early in the spring --
before significant protein is available -- simply results in consumption
of the feed with no visible change in state of the bees.  As I have stated
here before, we started feeding some similar bees (about 50 similar hives)
 in March (25) and some in April (25) as a test one time.  We though that
the early start might give early buildup.  We monitored the bees all
season and all we could conclude was that we wasted our feed and our
effort with no benefit -- or harm.
 
Later tests with pollen supplement included indicated to us that we *could
indeed* get positive results by early feeding, however feed consumption is
considerably higher than it would be if we waited, and the main benefit
was visibly more vigourous bees.  When fed syrup and supplement in late
March, the small bees that normally are seen in the early hatches were not
apparent.  Rather the bees were full size and spunky. We really did not
see much difference in populations until a cycle or two later -- when the
brood of the artificially fed, more vigourous spring bees hatched and we
were forced to split more than normal.
 
FWIW, although many people have managed to get bees through winter by
feeding syrup continuously -- including a teacher of beekeeping at a local
ag college who should have known better -- it never results in good bees.
Syrup only works well -- as does honey -- when fed to healthy bees which
have never suffered recent hardship and fed in plenty of time in advance
of the dormant period.
 
In the case cited in the opening quote, there may be many reasons that the
bees required extra feed in early spring, however being forced to feed
under those early spring conditions is expensive and the amount of sugar
consumed is much greater than it would be if the stores were already
available capped in the comb -- either as honey or, preferably IMO,
converted sugar syrup.
 
> What was most surprising was the colony condition.  The honey fed bees had
> larger clusters, more brood, and were very visibly more quiet and less
> nervous, or less stressed, though I'm uncomfortable with that term.  I've
> made the same observations many times in commercial colonies over the years.
> When you pencil the economics closely I don't think it pays to feed sugar,
> especially today with all the other negative impacts on our bees.
 
Unfortunately people may be comparing apples and oranges. Oftentimes sugar
is fed late to colonies that have been deprived of feed and are
consequently stunted.  Most people cannot distinguish between bees that
have always been well fed, and those that have not.  I have recently
learned to spot the difference and it is fairly obvious when you try.
Bees that are nutritionally run down take generations to recover unless
ideal foraging conditions occur and continue for a period of weeks.
 
I'm surprised that Andy has not yet asserted himself on this thread, since
this is his theme and he has been my mentor in learning to understand this
most essential aspect of beekeeping. My initial attempts at protein
supplementation were failures and are documented in the archives.
 
If there is any doubt in your mind as whether protein supplementation can
work, simply visit http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Misc/Pollen1.jpg then
if you are somewhat convinced go to
http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Misc/Pollen.htm
 
There are a lot of subtle things about beekeeping and often when people
think they are seeing one thing, they are actually seeing something else.
I guess one of the most essential things almost no one understands is that
it only takes a short time with inadequate feed for the bees to go a long
ways backwards and often it takes generations to recover.
 
The population numbers may not decline, but bees without a reserve of
honey or sugar syrup will decline in vigour.  I have had the bank come
through late with money and had to feed when the bees have been down to
the last twenty or so pounds of honey in an unusaually dry fall, and I can
tell you from bitter experience that no amount of feeding, either honey or
syrup will ever bring them back to what they would have been if they had
been fed on time.
 
Sugar gets the bum rap in the example quoted.  Athough it is likely the
saviour rather than the cause of the mess in the first place, it is at the
scene of the crime.  Guilty by association.
 
The real cause?  Often Nature herself.  In dearth years, by the time the
bees are spit to make up for winter losses, there is no crop.  We have had
years where the amount of honey shipped in the fall -- and it was 100%
honey -- exactly equalled the amount of sugar syrup fed in the spring.  In
other words there was no surplus that year at all.
 
The other cause is beekeepers robbing the bees too close, and oftentimes
it is hard to tell in advance what is too close.  There is a school of
thought that says that if the bees are deprived of all their stores they
will work much harder than if they are always left a little reserve,
Poppycock.
 
Nonetheless, it is a judgement call whether to risk it take that last ten
pounds of honey and pay the bank or have the bees face certain death when
the bank takes over and they remain unfed and unwrapped in a snowbank.
 
> I am aware of some of the research on brood rearing with sugar and corn
> sugar.  Each paper I read limited their measurements to the area of brood
> raised.  I am not aware of any researcher ever measuring larval or brood
> survivability in relation to the type of feed.  I am also not aware of
> anyone measuring bee lipid content or other nutritional factors after
> wintering or feeding colonies on sugars Vs honey.
 
I think this would be a very worthwhile area of research.  I gather that
the differences observed in the field have never been obvious enough to
make this an urgent subject for investigation.  Nonetheless, it is
worthwhile to know these things.
 
I know from personal experience that brood tends to be scattered and full
of misses in the spring -- until we feed sugar, at which point it becomes
solid.  I had never realized that this might be due to the inferior nature
of the honies in the comb, since that is what the bees are down to
consuming by that point.  (they eat the sugar first since it generally
goes into the centre of the hive and is also nice an liquid compared to
the rock-hard honey).  Last in first out.  Interesting.
 
> Of course in some hives the observed behavior may be influenced by a lack of
> pollen which was not the case in the hives I personally tested.  In some
> commercial hives here pollen is in short supply in the fall and winter.
> I've seen lots of hives with 1/2 to one comb of pollen in October.  That
> just is not enough to winter colonies properly in Washington.
 
Or here either.  That is why we have to feed pollen supplement or quit
keeping bees here.
 
> Bees going from here to California for almond pollination often run out
> of pollen in December (raising bees almost without pollen in January)
> and with only a few exceptions, don't have enough pollen until the
> almonds bloom.
 
And we have heard here that almond pollen is poor.
 
Allen