Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: Alklar20 on January 16, 2022, 04:32:53 pm
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I plan on doing some mountain camp feeding for my beehive, but my family doesn?t get any newspapers. I need an alternative, but I?m worried about chemicals that could potentially be in the paper. Does anybody know of any chemical-free types of paper that would make a viable alternative to newspaper?
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Why don't you just make some sugar bricks or sugar balls? That way you don't need any paper. To make them, take 12 parts sugar to 1 part water, mix until the sugar is the consistency of wet sand, then form into balls or bricks and place somewhere warm and dry until they become dry and hard. Then you can set them right on the top bars with no paper required. If you have the space at the top of your hives (I have several inches of space for feeding built into my moisture quilts), I personally prefer balls to bricks, as the sphere dries and holds its shape better, but if you don't have much room on the top bars you can pat the sugar into a shallow pan and then cut it into bricks.
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Sometimes I will use newspaper the other day had no newspaper so I used paper from my printer. Another thing you can do is use a spray bottle to mist the sugar so it holds together. Sometimes I have put a full bag of sugar unopened on the top bars and the bees eat through the paper to get to the sugar.
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Brian MCquilkin
I used paper from my printer
I have used printer paper too. I like it. Supports the heavy sugar well until it has time to harder up from moisture from the bees.
The15thMember
Why don't you just make some sugar bricks or sugar balls? That way you don't need any paper.
I like using paper simply because all you have to do is, Open the top. Lay the paper down. Make a couple small slits,(starter place for the bees to begin feeding), and pour on the sugar. So fast and easy... I use two sheets of paper covering most of the top of the frames. This method also works as a moist barrier. The dry sugar soaks up moisture and last a long time..
Kind of like putting dry sackcrete in a post hole. The moisture is drawn from the earth and the concrete in the sackcrete hardens without having to be mixed.
The dry sugar draws the moisture from from the inside of the hive and acts as a barrier to the top of the hive. A two for one....
Phillip
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I have used tissue paper... It's the kind they wrap gifts in... Especially when you get a present... In a Box That like a shirt in it... You will literally can carry hundreds of these.. Without very much weight. Some may call this crate paper in some parts of the country..
BEE HAPPY Jim134 :smile:
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Brown paper bag. Doesn't matter. All paper is made with very toxic chemicals. The good thing is they don't eat it they just tear through it. Not for nothing sugar is made using toxic chemicals and they do eat that.