Gentlepeople:
     I have a question I present to this august body of beekeeping
     knowledge.
 
     One winter, in January, in Dayton, Ohio, I checked on my hive (one of
     the two I had which was still alive in January) and decided that they
     were light and needed fed.  I promptly mixed up some syrup (2:1) and
     took it over and placed it over the hole in the inner cover.
     The temperature dropped again.
     A couple of weeks later, I checked on them again.  I noticed
     brownish spotting where they obviously had been eliminating but it was
     ALL over the place.  This was my second winter, so I didn't know what
     was normal but it seemed to be an overabundance of fecal matter all
     over the hive and ground around the hive.  There were also a number of
     dead bees on the snow outside the upper entrance to the hive.  There
     were no bees flying and it was a rather "warm" day.  I listened and
     there was no sound.
     Being concerned I popped the top and looked inside.  No bees, only
     a dead cluster.  Fecal spotting all over the inside of the hive.  I
     assumed after reading ABC and the HHB, that nosema must have reared
     its ugly head and perhaps dysentry.  I couldn't tell which and it
     didn't matter much at that point.  The bees were dead.
     An "oldtimer" when questioned about what might have happened, said
     that I had "added to much water (in the syrup)" to the hive when the
     bees couldn't effectively deal with it.
 
     That is the first time I had heard that it could be detrimental to
     my hive's health to add sugar syrup at the wrong time.
     Is it true?
     When and how is it ok to add sugar syrup to a hive? When might it be
     detrimental?
     How could the negative effects be minimized?
 
     This set of questions has bugged me (pardon the pun) since that
     February.
     Does anyone have any answers that could help me?
 
     Mark Egloff
     Three year veteran of Mite attacks and terrible winters and ignorance.