Early Season Feeding

I promised in the last post to take up the mite issue in this one.

However, I realize I threw something up in the air in the last two posts that I did not bring down.  Just what about feeding in the early part of the year?

We tend to think that we need to feed an animal when it is hungry.  We feed the cats, and the cows, and the dogs, and the gerbils routinely because if we don’t they will starve.  If there is feed available to them in their dish or trough we consider them fed and if they don’t eat, we assume they are sick.

It’s a bit different with bees.  True, if they have honey in their comb or in their feeder and they are eating, they will not starve.  And if they are not eating, they are probably sick.  But availability of feed for bees is not a guarantee that all is well.  As we looked at in the last two posts, for a colony of bees to be well, they need to be brooding (queen must be actively laying eggs).  To be brooding there must be stimulation.  And stimulation only comes by a natural nectar source from wild flowers or an artificial feed source provided by their keeper—you!

So, I say again, just because there is a lot of honey in the hive does not mean all is well. 

In late summer and fall, feeding is fairly simple—put the feeder in (or on) the hive, pour in the syrup, close it up, repeat in a week until they quit taking the feed.

In the spring and early summer there are some factors to keep in mind.

1. You don’t want to contaminate your honey with the syrup that you feed.

Sugar syrup (or high fructose) will not be made into honey.  It is already a complex sugar and even though you might have it thinned down, it will not be chemically changed by what the bees do with it.  Natural nectar is different.  In the gathering and storing processes they add enzymes to it that chemically change it from a simple sugar (that will quickly go bad) to a stable complex sugar that normally can keep indefinitely.  So, what this means for feeding is that you don’t want to feed when there is honey on the hive that you want to take for yourself.

2. There is no point in feeding when there is a honey flow on.

And how do you know?  If honey-producing flowers are blooming in sufficient amounts and secreting nectar and the weather is warm enough and fair enough, most likely the bees will be bringing in nectar.  Let me expand: not all blooming flowers are flowers that bees visit like tulips and roses.  Also, a few bee flowers in your flower beds are not enough.  It takes several trees or acres of flowers to be truly productive.  And, bees don’t fly in temperatures less than 55 degrees or in rainy conditions.  One more: some species of plants like black locust do not secrete nectar within a few days of rain.  If you really want to know if there is a honey flow on, open the hive, find a frame of uncapped cells that have liquid in it and shake it over the hive.  If nothing shakes out, there is no flow.  If it does, smile!  Bees are happy and you do not need to feed.

3. You do have some time.

If the nectar flow ceases today (for whatever reason) creating a dearth, you will not have dead bees tomorrow.  Nor will the queen shut down (the most important matter).  Don’t panic. You have at least a week, maybe more.

4. But don’t be caught off guard.

While you have some time, you must be alert.  Think about the weather and the flowers and the temperature and, of course, the bees.  With all our 101 things that scream for our attention, don’t forget to think about what is going on outside your window.  Shut that out and you will have a crises on your hands—sooner than you think.  That’s when you won’t have time.  Stay connected with those bees.

We have a lot of people concerned about feeding in the spring.  I’d like to say that you don’t need to because there are plenty of flowers.  But as soon as I say it isn’t much to be concerned about, we’ll have a streak of cool, cloudy, rainy weather and the bees are in peril.  Or we will be caught off guard and find that the flowers we thought were there aren’t yielding any nectar.  It’s not very simple, and yet with an understanding of the background principles and factors it’s not rocket science.  Just use some common sense.  Really that is part of the fun!

Mites next time. I promise. Again.

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