Feeding dry sugar ...

[little john]

Earlier today I stumbled across some photographs I took - years ago - of a overhead feeding trial I conducted with dry sugar inside inverted jars, placed over holes in the crown board (inner cover) during winter.

So how is the loose sugar kept from falling out of the jars ? Simples - just spray a little water onto the surface of the sugar over several days, until the sugar sets hard. After that, it's going nowhere ...

Here's a shot of the set-up - the 3:1 syrup jar has a perforated lid - the other jars have no lids:



Dunno what the brown stuff was - Tesco's fondant heavily laced with pollen substitute, if memory serves ...  Whatever it was, the bees wouldn't touch it. They scoffed the sugar, and took down quite a lot of the syrup - for the water content I assume, so that they could dilute the sugar crystals with it.

Here's shot of the girls at work:



And here's the most brilliant shot of a jar from another hive - the girls there had excavated the sugar so that it resembled a head of coral. Beautiful.



I'd completely forgotten I'd taken those photographs - hope you like the last one, anyway. All colonies under test survived the winter ok.

BTW - I haven't used 'dry' sugar since I discovered Baker's Fondant.

LJ

[GSF]

nice shots

[Colobee]

And a great idea. So much is being made, lately, about feeding sugar bricks in the winter ( & some folks having problems making them), and that syrup is NOT an option in cold weather. You appear to have hit on a solution for both.
 
Thank you for sharing!

[BeeMaster2]

Since we are having a very warm winter I have decided to feed my bees especially after loosing a hive this week that was full of honey and bees when I reduced it for winter last November.
I added one item to the jars. I cut out a piece of queen excluder to fit in the lid. This enables the bees to eat the sugar, even when moist but stops the sugar from falling into the hive. As they ear the sugar they can still go in and out of the jars.
Jim

[Colobee]

That's a good point, Jim. 
 
I was also concerned about having a "sugar dump" if all the sugar hadn't set up hard. I suppose that with time and practice I could get jars that were rock hard throughout, but in the mean time, I'd err on the side of caution.
 
Since I use mason jars, and spare lids are cheap and readily available, I was figuring on making another set of lids with holes large enough for the bees to pass ( like 3/8" to 1/2"). Inverting the jars over a queen excluder, or cutting a piece of one for each jar would have the same effect. I have a bunch of spare metal excluders but they'd be a PITA to cut. Plastic ones would make cutting MUCH easier.

I already have 2 sets of mason jar lids. One set has just 2 very small holes (1/16"), to restrict syrup feeding. Those slow consumption to a quart every 2 days. The other set has five 3/32" holes for quick feeding - a hungry hive will take a quart in 6-8 hours.
 
Since my hives are all in the back yard, I don't have a large number to tend, and I don't mind tending them daily when needed, multiple sets of lids are both a cheap and easy way to care for my bees. One more set would cover all the options
 
I really like the idea of fitting 2+ pounds of sugar into a quart jar, vs ~1.3 pounds with 2:1 syrup, or 1 pound with 1:1. I need to make a few more sugar bricks soon, and will be trying the jar method too, this time... Another point - mason jars are much more vermin proof - one could make up a couple cases ahead of time, in the long winter months, and have them ready to go as needed.

[BeeMaster2]

Colobee,
If you make up jars ahead of time, put a regular lid on it and store it upside down. That will have the sugar up against the lid when up feed them.
Jim