The one up side I remember reading about with regard to feeding sucrose in
> the fall as opposed to leaving honey was that it was easier on the bees due
> to the lack of solids, the idea being that cleansing flights were less
> necessary and dysentery was not as much of a problem.
>

True but depends on the honey. Some fall honeys are not to good for the
bees because of high ash content. Also a lot of honeydew honey comes in
then which is also bad for overwintering.

George Imire had a method of keeping it to a minimum for winter and did not
involve feeding syrup. I use it. Extract after clover, then put an inner
cover with no notch on and then the extracted supers. Fall honey will end
up in the extracted supers and pull them in the fall for great honey for
the beekeeper. No need to feed anything as the bees will have mostly good
honey.

But, sugar syrup is still the best feed for wintering in the far north as
shown by Bailey way back when. Near zero ash.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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