Lemon juice %

[Hoanui]

Just on 3 litres of purest tap water to 5 kg white granulated sugar ( £3.99 a bag from TESCO) and you will not go wrong................

IGNORE all the hype about inverted sugar products... just a marketing initiative to make the makers of Ambrosia an the like a massive profit from us poor hard up beekeeperers!!

Yep, bought a few of those bags today.

 

[drstitson]

Best Bond Ever!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czWLEbNwjCI"]Stop Getting Bond Wrong! - YouTube[/ame]

 

[For want of a better word]

THEN... Basildon Bond !

 

[REDWOOD]

Then there's Johnny English
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOSZLgzgnBs"]Johnny English Reborn - First Trailer - YouTube[/ame]
I watched this in a cinema in London I think I was the only one laughing must be my weird sense of humour

 

[pargyle]

Seems to be various articles on the subject of corn syrup -

http://phys.org/news/2013-04-high-fructose-corn-syrup-tied-worldwide.html#jCp

Be very careful with american beekeeping sites ... some have some very strange ideas - Youtube is particularly bad !

As the article says ... after nearly 40 years of feeding their bees on modified corn syrup they are just beginning to realise that they might have a problem.

I read a number of USA based bee blogs, sites and forums and some of the things that get suggested leave you cringeing ... very different sort of beekeeping at times.

 

[Hoanui]

I agree, I pay scant attention to much of what they say having said that there doesn't seem to be many from the UK or Australia. The videos I do like are the old ones in the 1960's/1970's of the skep bee keeper in Germany. Although they're old I found them to be very informative about skeps, anyway.

 

[itma]

It would be a mistake to associate Corn Syrup with invert syrups produced specifically for bee feeding.
Rather different things.

 

[Hoanui]

I'll stick with sugar and water. Do any of you add vitamins and minerals etc or is it best to stay clear of them?

 

[itma]

I'll stick with sugar and water. Do any of you add vitamins and minerals etc or is it best to stay clear of them?

Some people put allsorts into their spring protein patties ...

However, emulsified Thymol has a place in syrup, not just preventing fermentation, but also acting as a tonic against Nosema.

 

[chrismcd]

That source reference seems to be keener on honey!

Seems to be various articles on the subject of corn syrup -

http://phys.org/news/2013-04-high-fructose-corn-syrup-tied-worldwide.html#jCp

Following that link, the reference seems to be saying that honey is best because of the pollen ingredients in it! Particularly when bees need to metabolise coumaphos. I am not sure just what the relevance is to the debate over what to feed for winter stores in the UK.

Fructose seems to get a bad crit for both human and bee metabolism. Humans apparently metabolise most fructose in the liver - which can lead to problems associated with type 2 diabetes. None of which would seem to have much to do with bees.

AFAIK, High fructose corn syrup is used by US food manufacturers because humans find fructose "sweeter" than glucose or sucrose. Because of this it is a major industrial food product in the US and costs have come down, making it a cheap feed for large scale bee farmers in the US.

Personally, I think I will play safe and stay in the "feed 60% syrup made from white sugar" camp. That gives a glucose/fructose ratio that the bees have evolved to deal with and costs rather less than seductively named "Ambrosias"

And yes, I have heard debates about adding lemon as a flavouring. Who knows - maybe some bees like a bit of variety. Probably those Italians, who never seem to realise what a Yorkshire winter is anyway.

 

[itma]

...
Fructose seems to get a bad crit for both human and bee metabolism. ...

Awkwardly, runny honey is predominantly ...












... fructose.
See for example http://www.honey.com/images/downloads/carb.pdf
Setting honeys have Glucose nearer equal to or just less than the amount of Fructose.

Products such as the "seductively named" Api-Invert are simply mimicking the composition of honey, without the stray pollen, colour and flavourings.

 

[Finman]

Following that link, the reference seems to be saying that honey is best because of the pollen ingredients in it! Particularly when bees need to metabolise coumaphos. I am not sure just what the relevance is to the debate over what to feed for winter stores in the UK.
.......................

-...

Now discussion goes out to spheres

- CDD is not worldwide. It is only in USA.
- fructose is one of the basic elements in erth's life, and suddenly, it is poison = nonsense
- sucrose is chemically glucose+fructose and they are splitted in the body.
- choumafoss was used against varroa 20-25 years ago (like perizin)
- honey gives energy to bees and other nutritiens it gets from pollen.
- wasp gets energy from nectar but other nutrtients it gets via hunting insect flesh, like aphids and butterfly larvae. Wasp does not store nectar

- Winter feeding of bees has been the same 100 years. Sucrose has been only stuff what has been feeded to bees. Some guys have feeded raw sugar, molasses, but hives have died.

- I sucrose has been used in England 1000 years...and now sucrose is poison. That is true. Every sucrose user has died or will die

- 12 milj negroes were captured in Africa and sold to America to work on sucrose fields. (slavery has been among humans thousands of years, as long as history exists)


Finnish people use sucrose 30 kg/ person a year. It is almost 100 g a day. They use honey 0,5 kg/year, and quite few do it.

Honey is same stuff as sucrose. In nectar sucrose is common but bees split the molecule to glucose and fructose molecule.

 

[Finman]

.
Sugar content of willow nectar (2002)

 

[Finman]

.
It is misleading, if you think that succesfull wintering will be dependent on quality of sugar.
Honey is sugar, sugar is sugar and ambrosia is sugar. Normal sugar is basis of life on earth. It is not poison.


Basic points in wintering are:

- a bee strain which react properly to local climate. It reacts properly to the signs that winter is coming

- colony size over winter. And question is not only get hive alive over winter.

- Big colonies are easy to overwinter and they have good ability to build up for early foraging
- with aid of strong colonies you can help weak colonies to build up in time for main yield

- the hive is in winter rest and do not rear brood during autumn or winter

- strain waits for spring and start brood rearing in large scale when nature is ready to that

- natural nosema resistancy . Nosema is one of the worst winter diseases

- late summer treatment of varroa. Mite reduces size of cluster. (December varroa treatment does not affect any more on that winter )

POLLEN

Pollen is a key factor as wintering and in spring build up

- have you such nursing habit that bees can make pollen stores for bad days and for wintering
- do bees have pollen stores when last winter bees emerge
- pollen patty feeding does not help in autumn. It makes things worse.
- do hive has pollen stores to start early build up: carniolan tends to have such but Italian eates all in autumn.
- bee strain have different instinct to store pollen from strain to strain

SAVING WINTER FOOD STORES

- reduce the wintering room to minimum
- insulation
- ventilation
- getting out moisture from hive: mesh floor, slating solid floor, upper entrance
- wind protection: calm place, extra space under wintering box

COLONY REDUCTION DURING SPRING

- it is discussed almost not at all.
- colony looses bees during long spring after cleansing flight
- nosema makes that colony is not able to rear new bees and wintering bees dwindle away
- if you put a frame of emerging bees from healthy hive, the colony is able to start brood rearing

- too early "encouraging" to make brood
- bee strain may bee mad to start brood rearing: in my yeard Elgon bee, Norton's Superbee.... And other colonies continue their winter rest and save cluster size for better weathers.
- chalk brood is spring disease when weathers are cold. You get rid of it by changing genepool of your colonies.

- virus problems which follows bad varroa load. They have become worse duing years

- Flying in low temperatures is not a good feature. Casualties will occur more than in lazy hive

MOST WINTERING PROBLEMS

- in my hives most problems are connected to queens. But they are easy to correct when you have spare hives.
- I was adviced to keep 20% spare hives and it has bee a correct figure during 45 years.

- to correct queen losses with imported queens is not a good idea. They arrive from south Europe and they bring a genepool, which brings problems, but it brings good genes too ( EFB resistancy, chalkbrood resistancy, nosema resistancy, breaking inbreeding)

SPARE HIVES

- Spare hives and nucs are a good way to resist wintering problems.

 

[oliver90owner]

I just read Finsky's last post.

Just about sums it up spot on, I reckon. That is if it is "on thread".

RAB

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

That is if it is "on thread".
RAB

Doesn't really matter - sums it all up in a nutshell

 

[pargyle]

Doesn't really matter - sums it all up in a nutshell

Yep ... it's a good post Finman ... bit off topic but useful advice.

 

[itma]

While no-one would call sucrose a "poison" for bees, it is generally a minor constituent of the natural nectars that they gather.

OSR nectar for example has essentially no sucrose.

Abstract:
In May 005, nectar production and sugar composition was studied in Hungary in three oilseed rape (Brassica napus L. var. napus) cultivars ('Baldur', 'Bekalb Catonic', and 'Colombo').
... Only hexoses {glucose and fructose} could be detected in the nectar of the cultivars, and the amount of glucose corresponded roughly to that of fructose, with the exception of 'Baldur', which had a relatively high glucose content. The glucose:fructose ratio reached or exceeded 0.95 in all studied cultivars, indicating that resulting honeys would tend to granulate readily. Therefore, none of the rape cultivars produced nectar wih a low glucose:fructose ratio that would be suitable to produce less readily granulating rape honey.

http://www.actahort.org/books/767/767_29.htm

 

[Finman]

bit off topic but .

Topic is, how to get better wintering.

With selecting sugar quality, you do not get it.
You can spend money and make all kind of tricks, but bees do not become better.

I have wintered bees purely with sugar. Not even pollen stores in hives.
They are alive after winter, but I believe, not in good condition to start brood rearing.
When you look the feces after winter, they have eaten lots of pollen.- For fun? - I suppose not.

What ever you do to bees, thery are in bad condition after winter. They will die as soon as new bees emerge. For example after cleansing flight I have put a queen and assistant workers into a queen box. Workers have died during 3 days. And I have done it several times.

Think about the issue: you give a lemon juice, acetic or some hokkuspokkus to syrup and all problems are away. Beekeeping is not that easy.

 

[Finman]

................]

When you look combs after winter, sucrose/sugar does not make crystals in combs. It is natural honey which is in granules.

.