When, What and How to Feed Your Bees
There are times where you need to put forth
the attention to feeding your bees. Neglecting the needs of your bees during
different times throughout the year will cause the bees to seek for other food
sources for the sake of survival. And when this happens, you’re the one who
will carry all the loss cause by the swarming of your starving bees
When
to feed
During the year there are two seasons where
sufficient feeding should be assured. First is in the autumn after you have
harvested honey crops from the hives. Make sure that you have enough honey left
for storage of food through the winter. Additional feeding may be required
during winter time.
The second is in early spring after the winter
where the bees might be short of honey although you felt that you have left
enough honey for the bees. Their honey storage is simply at a critical level.
Additional feeding should be provided.
What
to feed
Naturally, honey is the main food of bees.
Always bear in mind that you should left a sufficient amount of honey every
time you harvest the honey from the hives. On the other hand there are
occasions where the bees need extra feeding, especially if you would like to
stimulate a colony to produce more bees.
Syrup is the alternate food of choice in
beekeeping. The syrup can be easily made in a large quantity from granulated
sugar diluted in the same portion of water (1 : 1 ratio). Since syrup is
tasteless and its presence is probably not detected by the bees, you can add a
little honey to the syrup to attract the bees to take the syrup. If you want to
use syrup to extra feed your bees to stimulate colony growth a portion of sugar
and water with a ratio of 1 : 2 will be sufficient.
How
to feed
You can feed your bees from outside the hive
as well as from inside the hive. You can make use of a bee syrup feeder which
can be placed on top of the hive, hence called a hive-top feeder. A hive top
feeder is a specially designed hive box or an up side down pail with some
holes. As a matter of fact you can choose from various types of feeders that
are available in the market. To mention a view:
- The
Boardman style entrance feeder
- One
Gallon Pail Feeder Plus a Stainless Steel Screen Lid
- The
10-Frame Plastic Top Feeder
- The
8-Frame Wilde’s Wooden Top Feeder
- The
Division Board Feeder
- Modified
Entrance Feeder with an extended feeder into the entrance
