Sugar and half

[ShinySideUp]

I am ever the one for compromise but should I be compromising at this time of year?

I am feeding my nuc box as, although they have plenty of bees, they seem to have no stores. I want the queen to keep laying so I have a good stock of winter bees but I also want them to build up some stores for winter so I can just top up with fondant.

Since 1:1 encourages laying and 2:1 encourages storing then 3:2 seems the logical thing to do...isn't it?

Also, the last time I tried to mix up 2:1 I had the devil's own job trying to get it all dissolved. How much can you heat the water without affecting the sugar and therefore aid dissolving?

 

[Beefriendly]

2:1 is fine this time of year, just use very hot water to get dissolved.
Then observe how they are using it by inspecting your hives. If you think they are filling too many brood frames with stores, ease off on the feeding for a while and increase in Oct/Nov. There is no magic formula. Observe what your bees are doing and work out what they need..

 

[Wingy]

I'm in exactly the same position with mine. In a 5 frame langstroth nuc, insulated with 50mm kingspan I've added an eke where I've provided pollen Pattie, fondant and 1:1 syrup, they are in the HB at the moment so loads coming in as well. This was a small cast swarm and only cover 3 frames, they are rapidly drawing another 2 of foundation and I feel it's a balancing act between enough room for the Q to lay and building up stores. My first year with my first bees and a big learning curve
Wingy

 

[For want of a better word]

NBU advice is feed 60% sugar solution ( 1kg white granulated sugar and 680ml clean water) or feed invert bee feed.

But seems beekeepers seem to like to reinvent the wheel and then argue which colour it should be painted on an annual basis!

I add a thymol mix ( Hivemakers stickie formula) to the sugar solution to prevent mold growing in the feeders.

Had one colony of yellow hybrids on the point of collapse from starvation as they had consumed all of their stores yesterday... fed slab of fondant straight on crownboard over feeder hole... as always have it in the truck.
Colonies either side ( a lot darker).. still loading up the supers.

Big stand of HB in the stream at St Ive Keason...... EA will be along soon to pull it up no doubt!!

Yeghes da

 

[Davelin]

Also, the last time I tried to mix up 2:1 I had the devil's own job trying to get it all dissolved. How much can you heat the water without affecting the sugar and therefore aid dissolving?

It's worth noting that 2:1, and indeed 1:1 are not the same in imperial and metric. The traditional 2:1 dissolves 2lb of sugar in a pint of water.

The same concentration equates to 2kg in 1.25L.

I dissolve 8kg in 5L, this is the same ratio as 20lb in 10pints and is close to a saturated solution, so 10kg in 5L is difficult.

(Which is not far off what icanhopit suggests, which I've just read!!)

 

[drex]

Dave.in beat me to it . As he says 2:1 is near the saturation point, I.e. The maximum amount of a substance you can dissolve in a given volume of liquid. Heating does increase the rate at which sugar will dissolve. It also increases the saturation point, hence if a hot solution is made to saturation point, the solid crystallises out as it cools.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Big stand of HB in the stream at St Ive Keason...... EA will be along soon to pull it up no doubt!!

Yeghes da

Loose talk costs lives (even if it is plant lives)

 

[For want of a better word]

It's worth noting that 2:1, and indeed 1:1 are not the same in imperial and metric. The traditional 2:1 dissolves 2lb of sugar in a pint of water.

The same concentration equates to 2kg in 1.25L.

I dissolve 8kg in 5L, this is the same ratio as 20lb in 10pints and is close to a saturated solution, so 10kg in 5L is difficult.

(Which is not far off what icanhopit suggests, which I've just read!!)

1 kg in 625 ml water...... I use 680ml which is 10.9% more
( Beef loves it when we get all pedantic.... and sweet Finnie will be having apoplexious attacks and will be posting such things as us Brits do not know how to measure volumes of water correct loik!)

Yeghes da

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Since 1:1 encourages laying and 2:1 encourages storing then 3:2 seems the logical thing to do...isn't it?

You can sometimes listen a bit too much to these so called experts (do you think bees will ignore 1:1 syrup if they are intent on storing or vice versa?
I never use 1:1 regardless of the time of year and the desired outcome.
In fact I use invert spring, summer or autumn which is even thicker than 2:1
bees draw out comb just as fast, queens don't slow down laying.

 

[Webby]

I always mix 2:1 as 2kilos sugar to 1 litre of water as a litre weighs a kilo. Is this wrong?

 

[Curley]

See Davelin's post above. 2 : 1 in 'the books' refers to 2lbs of sugar to 1 pint of water. To get the same ratio use 2kg to 1.25 litres of water. 2kg to 1 litre will take a lot of stirring to dissolve and may crystallize in the feeders. Note also JBMs comment - sugar is sugar at the end of the day. They won't turn their noses up unless it too weak. Not sure I would be feeding syrup in November as suggested above. Bit late by then I would have thought

 

[dolbz]

I always mix 2:1 as 2kilos sugar to 1 litre of water as a litre weighs a kilo. Is this wrong?

No it's not wrong. People seem to get very particular about exactness with this part of beekeeping but forget that every other question has endless apparently plausible answers

Bees will vary the concentration for their uses anyway. I believe we use thick syrup in winter feeding as it requires less space in the hive to reduce down to whatever concentration to bees want to store. 2:1 by weight which you're using is more concentrated than the NBU suggested mix so in theory will require less effort by the bees to store.

 

[Swarm]

Not sure I would be feeding syrup in November as suggested above. Bit late by then I would have thought

ITLD manages to do it and he's up north.

 

[Curley]

I stand corrected

 

[ShinySideUp]

OK, so having absorbed the previous comments I shall proceed to feed 2:1 as in 2kg sugar to 1 litre of water but with a bakers-dozen addition to the water -- i.e. I'll pop a bit more in; no, I'm not going to measure it.

The HB at St. Ive is a long flight for my girls but I'll tell them about it tomorrow (I've been practicing my waggle-dance!!).

 

[Webby]

No it's not wrong. People seem to get very particular about exactness with this part of beekeeping but forget that every other question has endless apparently plausible answers

Bees will vary the concentration for their uses anyway. I believe we use thick syrup in winter feeding as it requires less space in the hive to reduce down to whatever concentration to bees want to store. 2:1 by weight which you're using is more concentrated than the NBU suggested mix so in theory will require less effort by the bees to store.

Thanks. I'll carry on as I am then.

 

[Taliesin]

Why is it that the quantities quoted for syrup always give the sugar in whole kg and the volume of water in mls (e.g. 1kg sugar to 630ml water for thick syrup)?

Since it's easier to weigh the sugar in more accurate amounts than it is to measure water accurately to the ml, isn't it easier to switch the measurements around? 1kg sugar + 630ml water is the same as 1L water + 1.6kg sugar - that's easier to measure isn't it?

Or doesn't it matter if it's that accurate? Am I over-thinking this?

 

[Millet]

It does not get much simpler than this method, fill your container with the amount of sugar you are going to use, mark the level of the sugar then pour your boiling water to that level where you marked for 2:1 that way you can do away with worrying about pointless measurements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfMID-74jKI

 

[pargyle]

Oh my goodness ... Finman will be having an apopeplectic fit ...

All these are right .. the bees won't give a toss about whether it's 2:1 or 2:1.25 or whatever you manage to mix up - at a push you can wet a bag of sugar and they will take it down if they are starving !

The only thing to consider is that if you over concentrate the sugar solution then the sugar will crystallize out from the solution - either in the feeder or in the containers you are storing it in ... it's not the end of the world - just an inconvenience you can avoid.

There are more arguments about what to feed bees and in what quantities than anything else in beekeeping.

My view ? Bees make HONEY to eat over winter - wherever possible I aim to ensure that my bees have enough honey to see them through the winter - I avoid feeding sugar unless I've really got it wrong and the brood box is not well stocked with honey going into winter. I have a lot of ivy around me and they always get the Ivy honey and I tend to take the supers off about now and call that a day for my crop so there's still a fair amount of forage in my area for them to start filling the brood box.

As long as it's not too cold you can feed well into October and even later if they need it - the key is to look and see what they need not just start feeding - you are not doing them any favours by feeding too early and if they are starving this early then you really have to think about why they are starving - is there no local forage or have you done something to cause the lack of honey stores ?

There are those who want to squeeze every last drop of honey out of their bees ... not my way I'm afraid. Sugar is a poor substitute for honey for the bees to eat.

 

[ShinySideUp]

I have just done a food inspection today (OK, I hefted the hives) and the one where I left a honey super underneath the BB is so heavy I can hardly lift it and the other one is really quite light and I might have to feed them. They do have stores so I'm not rushing, they just don't seem to have very much in reserve. My nuc box requires feeding, of that there is no doubt as they have accumulated nothing except bees -- no shortage of bees, probably why they have no food.