Honey vs syrup & over wintering

[Dods bisyssla]

I heard many researchers claim that bees are more attracted to succrose than honey so I made my own simple test, 80 % syrup and 82 % Linden honey, honey to the left. End of the day - the only way to detemine what is best is to do a compariosn test. I have not found any paper describing such test so for that reason we will carry out one next year.
cheers

Mikael

 

[Dods bisyssla]

Watched this post with interest as I always leave a full honey super on over winter on my langs and interesting to see what other people do. Honey for me is also a byproduct of my hobby but, like many this year, I had a bumper harvest and lots of bees. I have also been watching Bob Binnie's interesting talks on sugar versus honey recently. Appreciate he is a big producer and in the USA so there is also an economic factor going on but for those who do not watch the video, he goes the sugar route and seems to present a good argument for doing so aside from just the economics in his business. (2 episodes). . So many answers for each beekeeper as usual and all have pros and cons and seem to depend heavily on environment too.

I watched the video and, again, someone is claiming that fall honey (I assume he mean heather and honey dew since he mentioned dark honey) cause dysentery due to mineral content. Would be great if such claim would be supported with scientific evidence. As shown in the Alfonsus study dysentery is not caused by the type of food -in fact minerals play very little part since they do not build up high contents to cause issues - the amount is simply not there. Other studies confirmed that it is the water content that causes the dysentery.
Alfonsus, E. C. (1935). The cause of dysentery in honeybees. Journal of Economic Entomology, 28(3): 568-576
cheers

Mikael

 

[B_north]

I watched the video and, again, someone is claiming that fall honey (I assume he mean heather and honey dew since he mentioned dark honey) cause dysentery due to mineral content. Would be great if such claim would be supported with scientific evidence.

I think it might be a case similar to the claim that varroa fed on 'hemolymph' and was later proven wrong. For the beekeeper on the ground, so to speak, it matters not what the actual reason is, the fact that some types of honey if left on the hive for winter stores causes dysentery is all they need to know.

Many are not scientists nor can they delve into much of the research and although we do need to clarify the particular mechanisms that cause dysentery, many beekeepers just need to know how to prevent it. If feeding syrup or sugar in some parts of the world get them to that end then they will do it.

 

[Dods bisyssla]

I think it might be a case similar to the claim that varroa fed on 'hemolymph' and was later proven wrong. For the beekeeper on the ground, so to speak, it matters not what the actual reason is, the fact that some types of honey if left on the hive for winter stores causes dysentery is all they need to know.

Many are not scientists nor can they delve into much of the research and although we do need to clarify the particular mechanisms that cause dysentery, many beekeepers just need to know how to prevent it. If feeding syrup or sugar in some parts of the world get them to that end then they will do it.

hi, obviously you are correct that anyone can do what they want but when you stand and give a presentation you become an authority and then, IMHO, your facts need to be checked. The study I use as reference is from 1935 so its not new information. And, he we was not talking of rape seed or any other type that chrystalize he was really claiming dark autumn honey with high mineral content to be dangerous to use. Anyways, I revisited a small test we did a couple of years ago where we used about 50% Heather honey as winter food on the 9 hives we had that year. 4 of the hives was in climate zone 4 and I just compiled wheather data for that year. Average temp was +2 in dec, -2 and -3 in jan and feb respectively and +2 in March. I also checked max temperatures and we had 8 weeks in a row where max temp did not go above +4 (in my limited experience bees dont fly below 4 degree). There was absolutely no traces of feces, mold or any other issues in any of the hives when we checked them in early april.

 

[Antipodes]

I watched the video and, again, someone is claiming that fall honey (I assume he mean heather and honey dew since he mentioned dark honey) cause dysentery due to mineral content. Would be great if such claim would be supported with scientific evidence. As shown in the Alfonsus study dysentery is not caused by the type of food -in fact minerals play very little part since they do not build up high contents to cause issues - the amount is simply not there. Other studies confirmed that it is the water content that causes the dysentery.
Alfonsus, E. C. (1935). The cause of dysentery in honeybees. Journal of Economic Entomology, 28(3): 568-576
cheers

Mikael

This one is worth a look at too.

 

[Dods bisyssla]

This one is worth a look at too.

hi was there any new things apart from the general stuff? Honey dew comes from the secret of insects who feed on plant sap. Its a great tasting honey that many beekeepers also claim is bad for the bees as winter food. Its equally claimed (as heather) with with very little, if any, scientific evidence to back it up. On the contrary I have a test report from a three year study where honey dew level up to 30% of the winter stores was tested. No impact on dysentery in particlular nor the winter losses in general could be detected.
cheers

Mikael

 

[Dods bisyssla]

hi was there any new things apart from the general stuff? Honey dew comes from the secret of insects who feed on plant sap. Its a great tasting honey that many beekeepers also claim is bad for the bees as winter food. Its equally claimed (as heather) with with very little, if any, scientific evidence to back it up. On the contrary I have a test report from a three year study where honey dew level up to 30% of the winter stores was tested. No impact on dysentery in particlular nor the winter losses in general could be detected.
cheers

Mikael

If anyone want to read the Honey dew study: Healthfulness of honeybee colonies (Apis mellifera L.) wintering on the stores with addition of honeydew honey

 

[elainemary]

Hello,
this simple question seems, strangely enough, not to have been answered in any field study. I have read hundreds of studies but they all have in common that they mostly are carried out in lab environmental or the target was to determine the best supplement to honey without including honey to the study as a baseline. I do have two studies to share - one that tested life span of bees and found that honey gave the longest lifespan.http://www.resistantbees.com/fotos/estudio/feeding.pdf. Its a labtest but it was carried out over three years and also tested the impact of the different feeds on the mid gut and showed honey to be best, pure sugar syrup 2nd best and the more things mixed in the syrup the more damage to the midgut and hence shorter lifespan. The 2nd study checked the impact of different supplement diets on the gene expression and, again, all supplements gave (detrimental) changes compared to honey. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep05726. But a real field study have, to my knowledge, not been carried out and therefore we will start one next season.
On the other hand, there are so many myth and "common knowledge" that needs to be debunked; I saw several in the answers further down; Fex someone gave the old argument that heather and honey dew have high ash content and hence not suitable as winter food (should cause dysentery) - any study supporting that claim one might ask? The answer is, again, no not to my knowledge. The fact is that a study done allready in 1935 by researcher Alfonsos determined that no food by itself caused dysentery, the only topic that have any impact was the issue to get rid of water and if the food had chrystallized and "splitted" the food in one "water" and one solid portion then the risk for dysentery was much higher. The ash content was of no relevance since it never gave any higher content in the guts - he carried out his studies over several years in real field conditions. This study cant be find on the net but if you want it then contact us on our blog. WordPress.com. It is also quite easy to calculate a theorethical value and see that indeed it will never be any critical amounts. Use 15 kg and 15000 bees and the hindgut can have 30% of the body weight before the amount of feces will give issues, at 45% dysentery will be a fact - according to Alfonsos study.
Just to confirm his study we carried out a test 2 years ago with 50% heather honey as winterfood (all 9 hives came out super strong) and this year we have one hive on 100% heather and compare it to 100% summer honey. We weigh the hives every month to determine food consumption and next season we will follow these hives and see if there are any differencies in the performance during the summer. Another common argument is that "I have always done this way and it works". What they really mean is that I have always done this way and I always get the same result and I am happy with it. But are winterlosses of 15-20% a good result? And some claim that if I give the bees 15-20 kg of honey for the winter then I get nothing for myself. Is 20-25 kg a good result? I would argue no to both these questions and if you are interested to know more then pls let me know. As a teaser we let our 13 hives have 260 kg of honey for this winter and we still got more than enough for ourselfes even if only 7-8 were production units. Furthermore, we go through many of the myths and check if there are scientific evidence to support and in most cases they are thoroughly debunked.
cheers
Mikael

Thanks for this & your subsequent posts - they have struck a real cord and support some of the conclusions I am reaching about the benefits of leaving enough winter honey for the Bees.
I’ve been beekeeping for just 6 seasons and gradually I’ve moved my now c12 colonies towards no feeding of sugar in autumn. I’m not there yet as certain autumns need a top up of invert eg4 colonies that I thought had enough in September I topped up in October.
My colonies are mainly in heather areas and I leave them heather or a mix. I’ve not lost a colony in last 5 winters. Each season my honey crop has grown substantially from similar number of hives. Probably in part, due to improved ‘management’ as I gain experience. Last 2 Springs my bees have come out of winter very strong with
colonies looking as strong as late summer, earlier swarming, but with bigger crops at the end of the season. Absolutely no dystentary from colonies left with a mix or pure heather.
Not a scientific study at all, just my anecdotal observations, your reasoning around the benefits of leaving honey all makes sense to me. Thanks for your contributions.

 

[Dods bisyssla]

Thanks for this & your subsequent posts - they have struck a real cord and support some of the conclusions I am reaching about the benefits of leaving enough winter honey for the Bees.
I’ve been beekeeping for just 6 seasons and gradually I’ve moved my now c12 colonies towards no feeding of sugar in autumn. I’m not there yet as certain autumns need a top up of invert eg4 colonies that I thought had enough in September I topped up in October.
My colonies are mainly in heather areas and I leave them heather or a mix. I’ve not lost a colony in last 5 winters. Each season my honey crop has grown substantially from similar number of hives. Probably in part, due to improved ‘management’ as I gain experience. Last 2 Springs my bees have come out of winter very strong with
colonies looking as strong as late summer, earlier swarming, but with bigger crops at the end of the season. Absolutely no dystentary from colonies left with a mix or pure heather.
Not a scientific study at all, just my anecdotal observations, your reasoning around the benefits of leaving honey all makes sense to me. Thanks for your contributions.

Thanks for the kind word and congrats to your good results. Im glad to hear about your good experiences (and yes better management gives better crops) and I hope that more people start to realize that the myth/claim is debunked.
Believe it or not but its likewise possible to avoid swarming by a combination of management and preventive actions. We have developed a managment tool that we call "reading the drone comb". We use drone cutout as our main strategy for Varroa control and we realized that the drone comb can tell the status of the colony - especially it gives a good warning if queen cells (swarming or queen change) are pending. And by taking action and do a queen split on the ones that really prepare to swarm and avoid un-needed splits on the others one maximize the crops. Let me know if this makes sense to you and if I should give more details how it works.
cheers

Mikael

 

[Dods bisyssla]

I think it might be a case similar to the claim that varroa fed on 'hemolymph' and was later proven wrong. For the beekeeper on the ground, so to speak, it matters not what the actual reason is, the fact that some types of honey if left on the hive for winter stores causes dysentery is all they need to know.

Many are not scientists nor can they delve into much of the research and although we do need to clarify the particular mechanisms that cause dysentery, many beekeepers just need to know how to prevent it. If feeding syrup or sugar in some parts of the world get them to that end then they will do it.

here is one report for you showing nice wintering in real winters, its from 1944 and still a great source, in MHO.
https://scientificbeekeeping.com/sc...ductive-management-of-honeybee-colonies-1.pdfcheers
Mikael

 

[elainemary]

Thanks for the kind word and congrats to your good results. Im glad to hear about your good experiences (and yes better management gives better crops) and I hope that more people start to realize that the myth/claim is debunked.
Believe it or not but its likewise possible to avoid swarming by a combination of management and preventive actions. We have developed a managment tool that we call "reading the drone comb". We use drone cutout as our main strategy for Varroa control and we realized that the drone comb can tell the status of the colony - especially it gives a good warning if queen cells (swarming or queen change) are pending. And by taking action and do a queen split on the ones that really prepare to swarm and avoid un-needed splits on the others one maximize the crops. Let me know if this makes sense to you and if I should give more details how it works.
cheers

Mikael

Hi ‘Mikael yes pls, I would like to hear more details. I’m cautious about cutting out too much drone comb, as if all beekeepers did this queen mating would become more difficult. However, any techniques to help read the colony status is of interest. I tend to give more space and stay ahead of the bees but also recognise it’s completely natural to swarm and I try to work with the bees

 

[Dods bisyssla]

Hi ‘Mikael yes pls, I would like to hear more details. I’m cautious about cutting out too much drone comb, as if all beekeepers did this queen mating would become more difficult. However, any techniques to help read the colony status is of interest. I tend to give more space and stay ahead of the bees but also recognise it’s completely natural to swarm and I try to work with the bees

hi ok I will write an article about it and just to re-assure you; we don't try stop the swarming behaviour since it is as you say, natural and its hardly possible to stop either. But we don't want the bees to swarm uncontrolled since we live in a city and our neighbours should not have to put up with bees in their chimneys or walls. Also, the bees will most likely not survive in the wild due to the Varroa, so also from ethical point of view we have to find any swarm that flies away and it's much less work to prevent them from flying away. What we do is to carry out the swarming as a queen split meaning we split the hive and put the old queen in a new hive. That way the bees "sense" that the colony have swarmed. With that method we have yet to see a swarm gone.
As for drone cut out- with our method we remove about one third of the drones so there are plenty of drones left (a strong colony produces up to 20000 drones so there will be no lack).

 

[Belgianbeekeeper]

hi ok I will write an article about it and just to re-assure you; we don't stop the swarming since it is as you say, natural and its hardly possible to stop either. But we don't want the bees to swarm uncontrolled since we live in a city and our neighbours should not have to put up with bees in their chimneys or walls. Also, the bees will most likely not survive in the wild due to the Varroa, so also from ethical point of view we have to find any swarm that flies away and it's much less work to prevent them from flying away. What we do is to carry out the swarming as a queen split meaning we split the hive and put the old queen in a new hive. That way the bees "sense" that the colony have swarmed. With that method we have yet to see a swarm gone.
As for drone cut out- with our method we remove about one third of the drones so there are plenty of drones left (a strong colony produces up to 20000 drones so there will be no lack).

Why you say swarming is hardly to prevent,we never ever had any swarming as long as i can remember,it's deadsimple to prevent,w've 34 hives atm,so it's not just one or two.Maibe best try to read in on the Renson system and improved Renson system before making such statement.

 

[Belgianbeekeeper]

Hello
Can anyone share any scientific papers or research studies, which prove / disprove the benefits or otherwise, of bees feeding on their own honey over winter vs being fed syrup?
I know some beekeepers feel strongly one way or the other and intuitively it feels honey is best. I’m really keen to understand the facts though as a result of scientific studies, if they exist!?
Elaine

Have no clue about studies,only can talk about experience,we just make a regular concentrated sugar solution,about a 100 gallon,400 liters,then add invertase what is an enzyme,put a pump in and let it circulate for about a week,the warmth of the pump is enough to finish the process,you end up with inverted sugar what's easier digestible for the bees.Then about mid september the hives getting weighted,with the hives we have a two lvl nuc needs to weight 22 kg a two lvl regular needs to weight 34 kg to be ready to pass the winter,so hive per hive gets the needed extra food,good week after last feeding we do a check up weighting and if needed we adjust.Works as a charm,8th season now without any hive losses.Ofcourse combined with the needed varoa treatments and working with straight Buckfast breeding lines(P1 island q's).

 

[Dods bisyssla]

Why you say swarming is hardly to prevent,we never ever had any swarming as long as i can remember,it's deadsimple to prevent,w've 34 hives atm,so it's not just one or two.Maibe best try to read in on the Renson system and improved Renson system before making such statement.

Sory if I was unclear
I mean its hard to stop the natural behaviuor/need the bees have to swarm. Also, our strategy is not to stop this instinct since it is a natural behaviour and we are all for keeping the bees as natural as possible - we do not want them to be overly domesticided. The only thing we actively breed away is the aggressive behaviour and this is because its no fun to handle angry bees despite also being a natural behaviour.

 

[Dods bisyssla]

hi ok I will write an article about it and just to re-assure you; we don't stop the swarming since it is as you say, natural and its hardly possible to stop either. But we don't want the bees to swarm uncontrolled since we live in a city and our neighbours should not have to put up with bees in their chimneys or walls. Also, the bees will most likely not survive in the wild due to the Varroa, so also from ethical point of view we have to find any swarm that flies away and it's much less work to prevent them from flying away. What we do is to carry out the swarming as a queen split meaning we split the hive and put the old queen in a new hive. That way the bees "sense" that the colony have swarmed. With that method we have yet to see a swarm gone.
As for drone cut out- with our method we remove about one third of the drones so there are plenty of drones left (a strong colony produces up to 20000 drones so there will be no lack).

hi
here is the strategy we use to prevent the swarming from happen, as explained we have no wish to breed away the instinct to swarm but we do not want them to swarm uncontrollably. In a perfect world with no Varroa and plenty of good behouses (hollow trees) we wouldnt mind that a few swarms went away but this is not how the situation is today.
Our main strategy to fight off Varroa is the cut-out of drone broods, which I will cover another time. However, the drone comb is a three way comb (see images below) with no wax sheets (left hand image) which the bees uses to build natural sized drone cells, but it can also be used as a tool to "read the hives". During the drone brood season, in our area that is maj-june, we ensure we have drone brood in three stages in the comb (covered cells, open cells and newly laid eggs) by removing 1/3 every week. A quick look on the comb will consequently tell us the status of the colony; if it looks like the image with plenty of brood including newly laid eggs then we know the hive is fully functional and no swarming or queen change is planned in near future. We know this since the bees need to reduce the queens weight before she can fly and swarm and this process takes about a week so if we see newly laid eggs then there is no need for any actions except ensure the bees have plenty of space for brrood and honey. This is two minutes job to open the hive, cutout the brood and check for eggs in the comb.
If we on the other hand don't see eggs we know they are up to something and we need to take a closer look on the rest of the combs to detemine if a swarm is due soon or if the queen is now infertile or missing. If there are plenty of covered worker broods but no eggs then most likely a swarm is due and then we probably will find several queen cells. In this case we carry out a queen split where we remove all of the combs with open cells but one with queen cells. If it is a super good colony then we might try to make several hives from the queen cells - usually ther are plenty of queen cells present.
We let the original hive keep most of the bees and all covered broods. Obviously the new hive(s) need to have enough workers to tend to the open brood as well as honey and pollen since they will be too few to forage. We ensure we fill up with workers so it covers the brood (this time of year we can usually take bees from any hive with no issues to avoid weaken the original hive too much).
Now we have created a strong forage hive (original hive) that can focus on producing honey since they now will have a brood less period and a new hive with the old queen. This situation is also an opportunity to treat against Varroa but, as said, that article will be for another day.
If there are few worker broods as well as no eggs then its probably time to switch the queen or she might be dead. If we find some good queen cells, we spare 2 max 3, and let them carry on and make the new queen, we prefer the bees to make the queens themselves as well as let them mate naturally.

 

[B_north]

I look forward to your information on varroa control, it is interesting to learn how others approach the problem and I am always looking for methods I can implement in my own apiary.

 

[elainemary]

hi
here is the strategy we use to prevent the swarming from happen, as explained we have no wish to breed away the instinct to swarm but we do not want them to swarm uncontrollably. In a perfect world with no Varroa and plenty of good behouses (hollow trees) we wouldnt mind that a few swarms went away but this is not how the situation is today.
Our main strategy to fight off Varroa is the cut-out of drone broods, which I will cover another time. However, the drone comb is a three way comb (see images below) with no wax sheets (left hand image) which the bees uses to build natural sized drone cells, but it can also be used as a tool to "read the hives". During the drone brood season, in our area that is maj-june, we ensure we have drone brood in three stages in the comb (covered cells, open cells and newly laid eggs) by removing 1/3 every week. A quick look on the comb will consequently tell us the status of the colony; if it looks like the image with plenty of brood including newly laid eggs then we know the hive is fully functional and no swarming or queen change is planned in near future. We know this since the bees need to reduce the queens weight before she can fly and swarm and this process takes about a week so if we see newly laid eggs then there is no need for any actions except ensure the bees have plenty of space for brrood and honey. This is two minutes job to open the hive, cutout the brood and check for eggs in the comb.
If we on the other hand don't see eggs we know they are up to something and we need to take a closer look on the rest of the combs to detemine if a swarm is due soon or if the queen is now infertile or missing. If there are plenty of covered worker broods but no eggs then most likely a swarm is due and then we probably will find several queen cells. In this case we carry out a queen split where we remove all of the combs with open cells but one with queen cells. If it is a super good colony then we might try to make several hives from the queen cells - usually ther are plenty of queen cells present.
We let the original hive keep most of the bees and all covered broods. Obviously the new hive(s) need to have enough workers to tend to the open brood as well as honey and pollen since they will be too few to forage. We ensure we fill up with workers so it covers the brood (this time of year we can usually take bees from any hive with no issues to avoid weaken the original hive too much).
Now we have created a strong forage hive (original hive) that can focus on producing honey since they now will have a brood less period and a new hive with the old queen. This situation is also an opportunity to treat against Varroa but, as said, that article will be for another day.
If there are few worker broods as well as no eggs then its probably time to switch the queen or she might be dead. If we find some good queen cells, we spare 2 max 3, and let them carry on and make the new queen, we prefer the bees to make the queens themselves as well as let them mate naturally.

View attachment 34458View attachment 34457

Thanks
I used a similar frame last season but to achieve a different objective - I gave to colonies with queens that had traits I liked so they could make extra drones with their mothers good qualities. Just a small attempt to help influence the quality of bees locally.

Once my virgin queens were mated I removed drone comb but only at the end of the season to help reduce varroa load, to give time to collect a late season heather crop, before treating for varroa late summer.

When you say you remove 1/3rd of drone brood are you removing only sealed brood (you don’t say in your earlier description)? Is the theory that by doing this, the bees sense they have insufficient drones (pheromone driven) so this helps curb the swarming instinct?
I’m interested in ‘why’ you take certain action as well as ‘what’…perhaps you can elaborate further please?

 

[Dods bisyssla]

Thanks
I used a similar frame last season but to achieve a different objective - I gave to colonies with queens that had traits I liked so they could make extra drones with their mothers good qualities. Just a small attempt to help influence the quality of bees locally.

Once my virgin queens were mated I removed drone comb but only at the end of the season to help reduce varroa load, to give time to collect a late season heather crop, before treating for varroa late summer.

When you say you remove 1/3rd of drone brood are you removing only sealed brood (you don’t say in your earlier description)? Is the theory that by doing this, the bees sense they have insufficient drones (pheromone driven) so this helps curb the swarming instinct?
I’m interested in ‘why’ you take certain action as well as ‘what’…perhaps you can elaborate further please?

hi, sorry if I was unclear. to cut out 1/3 is the Varroa strateg since Varroa prefers drone brood and once they are capped they are trapped. We use the existence of eggs (or lack) to see if we ahve issues and then we take the needed measurements as descibed. This way we know when they are on their way to swarm and can handle it as well as avoid manipulate when ther is no need. Hope it is more clear now

 

[Belgianbeekeeper]

Sory if I was unclear
I mean its hard to stop the natural behaviuor/need the bees have to swarm. Also, our strategy is not to stop this instinct since it is a natural behaviour and we are all for keeping the bees as natural as possible - we do not want them to be overly domesticided. The only thing we actively breed away is the aggressive behaviour and this is because its no fun to handle angry bees despite also being a natural behaviour.

An endless discusion i guess,put them on Renson and the urge to swarm disappears after good 9 days,one more q-bubble check up on the lower level and done for the season,we never found out any negative aspect on it,has nothing to do with domesticating or not,it's a system and one that works and time after time has proven it works,but it's clear to me you don't know it and have never used it or decently read in on it,way more production,never too big "flocks",nice handeble bees,zero swarming.We select our breeding stuff on production,hygene,caracter and varoa resistance,but also found out that the slightier more defensive once have a slightly higher productivity.