> One of the arguments about using 1:1 is it is more like nectar and the bees can use it more readily to make wax, but everything I have read says honey is the base ingredient for making wax.

Hi all
I hope that folks do not think that I am trying to argue over this topic, to me it is just a discussion. I have cited two experts that recommend 1:1 in spring, but I am going to venture my own views at this point. 

To me the question is a little broader than just getting bees to make wax, you want the colonies to grow, and comb is a necessity for that. When I worked at the bee lab we installed packages into ten frame hives with five full frames of honey and did not feed them. This was done in April and was not my idea (neither April nor not feeding). In hindsight, I think they should have been fed. 

I have bought packaged bees for myself and put them into hives in May. I generally feed until the hive looks like it is capable of managing its own affairs. This could be up to six weeks. Last spring I had so much honey left from hives that died, I didn't feed any of them, I wanted the bees to build up on the honey and restore the hives. 

I think you have to look at what you have in a package: a queen, enough bees to make a go of it. They resemble natural colonies of two types: 1) a swarm; and 2) a hive that just got through winter. In either case the bees "know" they have to hustle to get back to strength. They already "feel" compelled to do that, you just have to get them the resources. 

A wintered over hive can manage to build up on old honey, so the package can be set up to resemble that scenario. However, swarming bees seem to be more hell bent on hustling, to it's probably better to look at the package as if it were a swarm. A swarm comes out in May or June, the conditions are optimal. Nectar and pollen are plentiful, this is what you want to replicate. Fact is, bees won't build much comb on syrup alone, they need pollen. 

But beyond all that, the basic rule is honey bees only build comb *if they need it.* If they don't need it, why would they the expend the energy? During a nectar flow, what you have is a lot of dilute sugary water coming in at a rapid pace. They need somewhere to put it. If there is no comb, they store it in their bodies like ants. Pretty soon the wax forms and the storing bees make combs to put the nectar in. To them, more nectar means more comb is needed. 

Just heavy syrup coming in may work but it doesn't not fit with the scenario of a swarm building a new nest. If the main criterion is to make less work for the beekeeper, barrels of corn syrup might do, but I want the best for the bees, not the cheapest or easiest. 

Getting combs built is never easy. I hardly ever have to do it any more, but when I do I like to put 3 new frames in with the rest all drawn, in a super. Or add one or two frames into the brood nest and move the older ones out. 

I have seen bees draw ten new deep frames simultaneously in deep supers and fill them in about a week, during a basswood flow, but that was an astonishing exception. Swarms can sometimes pull this stunt, too, if the conditions are right. Hence, Richard Taylor's technique of "shook swarming" to get the maximum amount of comb honey from a colony. 

PLB
ref. available on req.

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