In my last post I talked about feeding stations for my bees. Instead of disturbing the bees and to save time I decided to set up feeding stations made from food grade buckets filled with sugar water. I did not want to assume just because they were bringing in pollen they would have food stores too.
I put two stations up and only refilled one bucket one time in two weeks. They did not attract the bee traffic I expected. I speculated as to why and anxiously waited for the chance to get in to the hives to see what was happening. My thoughts were “It may have been too early in the season or they still had food stores or I just didn’t have the amount of bees I thought I had.”
The weather finally leveled out. Spring showed up over night and I was able to inspect the hives. The reason they weren’t too active at the feeding stations was they did not need the sugar water! I did lose a few hives over the winter but the ones that made it were rocking. They still had honey stores in the supers. They were full of brood and bringing in pollen and starting to make honey.
I did not realize how much of a nectar flow was going on. (At the time there were only dandelions, daffodils and henbit blooming.) I was amazed by what my hives looked like.
I took the feeding stations down after the inspections.
Although I learned about feeding stations during my beekeeping classes with The Fat Bee Man, my first experience with a “station” in my own bee yard was accidental. I had been feeding the bees (in hive top feeders) and had a quart jar of sugar water left. I set the jar down on an empty bird bath and a cat ended up knocking it over and it broke. When I discovered it the bees were ALL OVER the bird bath! They sopped up the sugar water. A month or so later I deliberately put sugar water in the same bird bath and it sat there for two weeks with only the occasional red wasp visiting. It was wasted.
I have also put sugar water in a chicken waterer. I do not recommend using one unless you can put some sort of screen in the opening. The bees will get in there and not be able to get out and die. The same thing happened with the chicken waterer as with the bird bath. Sometimes the bees drank it up and other times it was ignored.
Another observation about active feeding stations is bee traffic will get crazy! I have had visitors complain about the increased bee traffic ALL OVER the yard.
I believe if the bees need the sugar water they will take it. If they do not need it they will not take it. That being said, I know there are always exceptions.
I also believe in only feeding my bees IF and WHEN they need it.
6 Comments
Open feeding is an excellent way to spead disease. consequently, it is prohibited in most of the nation. Fat Bee Man did the craft a huge disfavor when he began advocating this practice. I like the guy. I’ve been in his home and in his apiary. But not everything he teaches is legal or even wise.
Hi, Blaine, I googled “where is it illegal to feed honey bees outside?”, and I did not find any *American* State where it is. I found a lot of .au sites, more specifically the District of Victoria, Australia, talking about the original order as well as its many amendments. So I was looking, because I have never heard of such a law in WI.
Where did you see that in the US? I know it is not illegal in WI, where I live. Could you provide us with a list of the States where it is illegal?
To avoid the frenzy that might spark robbing, I place as many feeding stations as possible, about 50-100′ from the hive: When they all congregate around 5 pin holes, they can get a little wild. In the spring, especially, varroas are at the low ebb of their cycle, so you will not infect with varroas at the feeders. I worry more about feeding in the fall: yellow jackets then follow our bees to their hives and will kill the hives to get at the protein in the form of the young brood.
As you know, varroas are ubiquitous in nature. Our bees go foraging and come back infected all the time. Trying to prove that they caught varroa around a feeding pail outside versus in the fields as they have always done would be impossible to prove, me think. If it is the closeness to a sick individual that bothers you, think of the conditions in the hive.
As far as practices that can cause contagion, here are many more offensive things that go on besides feeding them outside:
– Many beekeepers feed their wet frames back, but when you have many, it is hard to remember whose frames are whose, so they do it *approximately*. (they don’t all get their own.)
-Equalizing hives in the Fall: you take from Paul & give to Peter so they all start winter with a healthy amount of stores.
– Look at the reusing of deadouts in which the bees may have crapped inside their hives. You know that they had at least dysentery is not outright nosema.
– Inside feeders that bring in extra moisture and mold may also cause infection.
-Fall feeding in which the bees die in the syrup, and then comes a bad spell of weather and you can’t remove the dead bees. The healthy bees have to feed right next to the molding corpses of their sisters.
-Folks who want to start “on the cheap” and they have a friend of a friend who is getting out of the business and has all that nice equipment, right?
-Splitting hives: you take frames of brood that you hope are healthy and start a new hive: If that brood was infected with varroa, there you go.
Perhaps it is because I’m a woman, I think of a hive as a womb: In feeding them outside, you give them clean syrup, it does not go in the hives. That is a lot more sanitary than all the other doubtful manipulations beekeepers do to their hives, IMHO.
That was the right call. Some folks are worried that setting a couple of feeding stations in the yard may encourage robbing. I have not seen that, although it could probably happen if you have a very weak hive that is open too wide, I suppose: (Bees always prefer honey over syrup. If you have a known weak hive, stay with the reduced entrance and chance feeding it internally).
In the yard, once they stop feeding, remove the syrup: (It might attract wasps, hornets etc.)
In cold areas, feeding outside the hive has another advantages:
1- You do not need to open the hive and risk chilling that young brood.
2- syrup adds a considerable amount of moisture to the hive. That is bad.
3- The ease of feeding a whole apiary versus walk to each hive and mess with it.
4- The ease of the removal: I’ve had a nearly empty bucket get propilised . When I removed it, the top stayed with the hive, the syrup spilled in the hive. What a mess: in the spring, the ants came to lap the syrup that had dripped from that hive. What a mess for the whole year, really. As you guessed, it did not help the girls much either!
5- No drowning: The girls suck from the underside of the bucket where there is no puddling of the syrup.
Just wondering what “type” of sugar you are feeding your bees?
Our studies indicate that “beet sugar” is almost always GMO. As almost everyone (including the World Health Org) will now state, GMO crops are bad for the health of people and the environment. Organic cane sugar might be okay, but it’s produced outside of the U.S. We are now offering 100% Certified Organic Maple Sugar – made here in Michigan.
We believe it to be the only SAFE sugar produced here in MI.
If you would like to try some, for you and your bees – just drop us a line – we will provide more information and product.
Best regards,
Wendy
Sugar from GMO beets is bad, but so is maple syrup: the bees cannot digest the solids. When I feed at all, it is always C&H.
Feeding outside your hives is a questionable practice. The biggest problem is robbing. Once it starts, It’s very hard to stop . If you use any essential oils in the sugar water (like lemongrass Oil ) they will follow the scent back to the Bee Yard. It doesn’t mater how fare away your feeding station is .They will still smell it at the other hives.
My thoughts on open air feeding —
If the hive has not stored enough honey during the summer to make it threw the winter, —–it is in a bad area for foraging or has other problems that need to be recognized . Feeding weak hives with sugar water is not the solution to the problem . If you had done a fall inspection of there reserves and decided the hive was in bad shape , why didn’t you replace the queen or combine the weak hives with strong ones so there are no winter loses .