I like the discussion on sugar Vs honey for winter.  I've heard all the pros
and cons over the years.  But I agree with Stefan most.  A few years back,
in wet western Washington State, 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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.  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.  That
situation results in poor bee nutrition, and ultimately in colony shrinkage.
I have seen and heard about several bee management systems that support this
opinion.
 
When the weather warms in the spring and bees can fly to get nectar and
pollen the syrup feeding doesn't seem to reflect the same un-quiet bee
behavior, or its harder to observe.
 
James C. Bach
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