On Apr 7, 12:03pm, Ted Wout wrote:
> Subject: Sugar Syrup, Cotton and Fire Ants
> Chris Blanchard wrote:
>
> >1.  I put feeder jars on the hives with a 1:1 sugar syrup.  How long
> should I
> >continue to feed them?
> As long as they'll take it in.  When there's a honey flow they'll stop and
> it will no longer be necessary.  Don't let them go empty.  At this stage
> they'll take in quite a bit of sugar and turn it into comb.  That's good
> because they'll make more honey for you.
 
Ted has a good point here.  Right about this time of spring, I give my bees
boxes of foundation with one or two drawn combs in it and as many gallons of
syrup as they'll drink.  When it warms up enough, they draw out box after box
which I then use for honey later.  I have two deeps on the bottom, then the box
of foundation they're working on, then an inverted pail type feeder on top of
this with a couple empty supers covering it.  Every time they get a box
finished, I put another with more foundation on top of it.  For some reason,
they seem much more willing to work foundation into comb in the spring than any
other time of the year.  This arrangement lets me make sugar into wax and
nectar into honey.  The queen lays more eggs because the syrup is like a nectar
flow to the bees.  I check the bottom brood boxes once a week or as the weather
allows and flip them around every time the queen moves into the upper one.  The
only tricky part about this system is swarm control because the hive builds
much faster than it would without syrup and all that extra room.  Timely splits
or checkerboarding help with swarms.  I only stop feeding when they stop
eating.
 
We've had three days of beautiful sunny weather after a whole winter and spring
of continual rain and it's great to see them fly!  I've seen at least 10
different colors of pollen coming in.  The bright orange stuff looks neat
against my dark blue hives.
 
Kris Bruland
Member of Mt. Baker Beekeepers Association
Bellingham, WA  98225