Sugar syrup container

[Bush_84]

Looking to see what everybody puts their sugar syrup on. Just looking to continue to streamline my process. I currently mix it in a 5 gallon bucket that has a spigot on the bottom. From there it goes into one gallon milk/juice jugs. Now that my colony count is rising, hauling all of these one gallon buckets is a pain. So what does everybody else do? 

[Dunkel]

I use the regular five gallon syrup jugs but my shoulder is acting up because of it.  I mix up in a stock pot then use mam maws old spout/funnel she used to can with to fill quart jars to pour into jug.  I have a friend that  uses a cheap atv sprayer for one to one, he mixes in bucket then hauls fifteen gallons and dispenses with a wand.  I think he said thicker overloaded his pump.

[cao]

I've been mixing mine in 2 liter soft drink bottles.  Fill about 2/3 with sugar and top with hot water and shake vigorously.  I make it up ahead of time.  As far as carrying it to the bee yard,  4 bottles fit in a five gallon bucket.  I'm only feeding about half my hives.  I've been refilling the quart jars every other day so it isn't too bad yet.

[Bush_84]

Maybe one gallon jugs are still the best plan.

[little john]

Despite having an unused 5-gallon tea-urn (purchased just for syrup-making) in the shed, I still make-up syrup in much smaller batches whenever there's a 'bad-weather day'.  Force of habit.
I find that pouring boiling water onto granulated sugar (with no additional heat) is ok for making 2:1 , which lasts for a month or two without developing black mould. A splash of bleach will extend that to around 3 months.  But - if I heat that 2:1 syrup to near boiling, I can then add more sugar to achieve around 3:1 .  Such thick syrup will then store indefinitely, and I like to make-up and store around 20 to 30 half-gallon milk jugs of it at a time.

I agree - carrying such containers around is a pain in the butt, and I keep meaning to make-up some kind of purpose-made wheelbarrow for the job - to hold, not just several jugs of syrup (and jugs of water for diluting as needed), but also a number of spare jars and lids, for whenever swapping dirty jars and gooed-up lids is called for.
LJ

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Sir Lil John, question.  After you make 3:1 sugar water, does the sugar re crystallized after the solution cools?  Thanks Buddy.
Blessings

[little john]

Hi Van - the ol' memory isn't what is was - but I seem to remember when I first started playing with sugar solutions - that, yes - on cooling, heavy syrups did 'plate-out' a thin layer of crystals at the bottom of the container.  I then took to adding a small amount of citric acid to the syrups as they cooled - sorry, I forgot to mention that step - which inverts a small percentage of the sucrose, thus preventing crystallisation.  We're not talking much - a quarter of a level teaspoon in half a gallon - that kind of quantity.  A splash of bleach or vinegar would do exactly the same job - I just happen to always have a big tub of citric acid handy.  Which reminds me ....

I don't remember ever posting about the sugar experiments I did back then ? 

I was looking for an alternative to damp-set crystallised sugar and/or fondant - something approaching 'medium hard fudge' perhaps, and started-off by boiling-up syrups to precise temperatures and seeing what resulted on their cooling:



No prizes for spotting that the level of HMF, although still fairly minimal, rises as the syrup temperature (a function of the length of boiling time) increases.

What really surprised me, however, was the effect of adding just a small amount of citric acid to the mix:



In the bottom (plain sugar) samples you can see the cavities created as the solution cools - just as when casting metals - but note the complete absence of any crystal structure in the upper samples, which were heated to exactly the same temperature, and thus have exactly the same sugar concentration as the bottom samples.

The consistency of those upper (partially inverted) samples may be more obvious in these shots:






I'd describe it as a semi-hard rubbery gel - which I'm sure could have some kind of future in beekeeping (maybe ?), but it's immediate application wasn't that obvious to me, so I pulled the plug on any further work.

Hope somebody finds the above to be of at least some passing interest.  My apologises to the OP for hijacking the thread.
LJ

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

So, the bottom sugar jelly is 3:1 with vitamin C, yes?  I am guessing bees can tolerate the vitamin C as exposure to citrus blooms are common which presents honey with citrus flavor.  Don't quote me on vitamin C and honey bee health.  I DO NOT KNOW the effect of vitamin C on honey bee health and is pure speculation on my part.

Does the sugar jelly harden like rock candy, or remain jelly?

Bush has started an interesting post here.

Thank you Sir Lil John, great pics, greater explanation!
Blessings

[Michael Bush]

Vitamin C and honey bee health:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24477034
www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3896/IBRA.1.51.3.07

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

MB, you are just incredible.  A wealth of knowledge.  Who else could come up with a bonafide NIH funded study of vitamin C and honey bee health, so fast,,,,,  like your waiting for us to post a question or something so you can respond.

Good article to say the least, 11:1 ratio, vitamin C is definitely good for the bees pertaining to varroa infection.  Thank you Mr. M. Bush.
Blessings

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

I might add to the conclusion of the article posted by M. Bush.  Colonies with vitamin C added to their diet had a whooping 33% increase in survival rate.  Thirty three percent is an astonishing high percentage increase.
Thanks again, MB.
Blessings

[little john]

Sorry to be a party pooper - but Vitamin C is Ascorbic Acid, which you could use of course as it's so beneficial to bee health.  I was actually using Citric Acid.  Both are organic acids - but unlike Ascorbic Acid, Citric Acid isn't considered to be a vitamin.  But - they're both found together in citrus fruits (hence the name), especially lemons and limes.
 
Yes - MB's very good at pulling-up info ... guess he must be plugged into a database ! 

Correction: I used the word 'rubbery' to describe the product - that's not quite right, as rubber has a 'rebound' quality to it.  This doesn't.   'Plasticky' would be better - a firm plasticky gel - a bit like slightly softened toffee.

Way above 3:1 though - maybe 6 or 8 - something like that.  Without the Citric Acid it would be fully crystallised, just like the bottom sample shown in photo 2.  That's what so amazing - the power that even a small amount of partial inversion has upon preventing the formation of crystals ...
'best,
LJ

[gww]

I am seriously thinking of trying only dry feed for all times except maby a fall fast feeding for weight gain.  I did a couple of small test outside the hive to see what bees would do with just dry sugar.  I know they sometimes carry it out as trash but figured if it was an open feeding situation that they would not do that.  We are in a derth.  The bees worked the dry stuff very fast and hard and it did not matter if it was right out of the bag or if it was crunchy hard and dry.

I am thinking just puring some on the inner cover on swarms and splits in spring and heck with the quart jars and shims and such.  Then there is no extra space for them to build bur comb and it seems like it might be easier to carry.

I am trying to get to not feeding at all but make my splits in my yard with out moving and some end up with very few foragers and so feeding won't go away all the way.
I am curious of others thoughts on this.
Cheers
gww

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

"I am curious of others thoughts on this."

GWW, hello buddy: I dry feed pollen powder substitute, open feeder, during a dearth and Fall. I get very nervous feeding syrup during a dearth, robbing is such an issue.  So, to me, feeding an individual hive syrup during a dearth is a no no due mainly to robbing concerns.

Thanks Sir Lil John for correction.
Blessings

[gww]

I fed during the derth on top of the hives.  It does draw unwanted attention.  I have no doubt looking at the activity that atempts at robbing were happening.  I did even more.  I extracted and then took the frames from the supers and used them to fill out my smaller hives to give them more comb to hold stores.  I have all my entrances reduced.  I think all the hives are still surviving it but also think that a few of them did not build up at a normal rate due to having robbing pressure of some sort all year. 

I finnished up my wintering by putting sugar blocks on the small hives and a few of them were too light but I am done feeding and want to see what happens, it is a risk.

I really don't want to starve then but last year they were too full and wanted to swarm before it even got warm enough to work the hives well.

Anyway, I am not sure one hive as light as it is has not already been robbed but it is looking normal again so I will see.

I am not treating and have light hives going into winter and had some robbing pressure and so winter aught to be interesting.  I did not use robber screens and guess I figure that if a hive can't gaurd two inches, it probly wouldn't have much chance over winter.  I know this can get out of hand if the bees want it bad enough but so far think I have dodged a massive robbing event and given the hives a small chance of survival and now, time will tell.

I see they are still checking out the seams of the hives with the sugar blocks on but not mobbing it like a dedicated robbing force would.  If they ever do find a hole, it is probly over.  It should be cluster wether very soon if they can just hold out that long.

Too your question of feeding during a derth causing robbing, I know of no other way to get the sugar to individual hives right before winter with out breaking the bank in sugar used.
I am sure I have a bit more learning to do.
Cheers
gww

[Michael Bush]

>guess he must be plugged into a database ! 

That would be my brain... with a refresher now and then from Google or Wikipedia...

[Bush_84]

So a few questions about this unique goo. Are there other ways of feeding other than jar?  Can you feed this in the winter?  Will it stimulate bees like sugar syrup does? 

[little john]

I never did feed that goo to the bees - 'cause I couldn't figure out how best to deliver it.  I only wrote about that stuff in case somebody else might be interested in 'taking up the baton and running with it'.  Sorry if I misled anybody ...

By one of life's strange coincidences, I was thinking this very morning about 'candy-floss' - which is nothing more than molten sugar, spun out from a spinning disk - making soft fine fibres from hard crystallised granules in the process.  And, just like glass, they become ultra-flexible in fibre form.  Although I doubt very much whether candy-floss itself could usefully be fed to bees (a bit bulky for that), I can't help wondering whether there might be some useful underlying principle there: that if sugar was converted into thin strands and woven into a kind of loose rope (maybe), or just compressed into a mat (similar to glass-fibre matting) - whether that could then be fed to bees without incurring any wastage ?

Meanwhile - back in the real world - there's always sugar-slurry (or sloppy fondant) which could be experimented with.  Again, it's the method of delivery which needs to be ironed-out.  I know that slit ziplock bags have been used successfully, but that's about all.

With regard to robbing, I'm finding that anti-robbing screens are the answer to this problem, and I'm currently in the process of fitting every single hive I have with one - even the big, powerful ones.  On several occasions I've seen the early stages of robbing commence, usually after an inspection whenever I've not taken precautions - only to then dwindle out after an hour or two.

I'm also optimistic that these screens will assist in the spread of Varroa, as robbing and drifting are both known to be infestation vectors.
'best
LJ