Paint can feeder problem

[Koala John]

Hi Ladies and Gents, please cast your minds back 6 months - here in the Southern Hemisphere our Winter is just starting. Temperatures are now dropping to the very low 30's at night and in a month or so will get down to the mid twenties, no lower. All hives have virtually no stores after the terrible drought we've had. I've been slow to get my hives fed, mainly because I am very new to this and an attempt at open feeding did not work for me. I recently fed them with a 2:1 mix of sugar syrup for them to stock up on for winter, and gave it to them still fairly hot in new clean paint tins with 6-10 holes punched in the lids and placed on top of each hive inside an empty super.

When I went to refill the cans today, I found that every can is untouched. I found that every lid had the holes covered from the inside with a solid sugar crystal neatly covering each hole. There were no other crystals in the syrup, it all still looked clear. I thought I made the holes big enough but perhaps I didn't? I've made the holes bigger and put in an extra can of warm syrup in each hive. When I made the syrup I brought it to a boil briefly to ensure all sugar was dissolved.

I'm at a real loss with this one and am getting very nervous about the falling temperatures and my dwindling bee numbers. Anyone know where I went wrong here?  :?
Thanks,
John.

[Joseph Clemens]

Basically, you waited too long to start feeding them for Winter stores. Their winter food should already be stored in their combs, well before the temperatures start to drop below 50F. Once it gets colder than that they will have trouble getting it out of the cans. Perhaps you may be able to save them by moving your syrup cans off to the side and laying down a single layer of newspaper, then pour lots of dry, granulated sugar onto it - keeping plenty of dry sugar available to the bees until the weather starts to warm up enough for them to take the syrup.

See: http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php?topic=14623.msg105690#msg105690

-----------
I can definitely appreciate your situation: Here in the desert Southwestern USA. Tucson, Arizona to be more precise, our previous season was so bad, except for our mesquite honey flow, there was virtually nothing else available to the bees, hardly even pollen - they were even robbing from humming bird feeders. In all my previous years of beekeeping I never have had to feed (I always left plenty of honey for the bees), but the first week of January 2008, I had to start feeding both pollen supplement and sugar syrup or my bees would have starved to death. They had long since used up 95% or more of the reserve honey provided by the mesquite flows and I had left them everything, and I harvested no honey the 2007 season. Our daytime temperatures are mostly well above 50F, even in the middle of Winter, so my bees had no problems taking syrup from inverted paint cans resting on top bars inside empty supers, or in some cases on the wires of queen excluders, better access for the bees. Pollen supplement patties do well on the excluder wires, too.

[JP]

Well, yeah, they never got any feed, that's where you went wrong. Do what Joseph suggests and emergency feed with dry sugar or fondant.

I'm sure that next time you won't repeat the same mistake. If they are healthy otherwise, just pamper them through winter so they won't starve.

Michael Bush's suggestions you will definitely want to read: http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm


...JP

[buzzbee]

As ;long as the daytime temps are up he could baggy feed the syrup.I suggest boiling the water,removing from the heat and then adding sugar. If you boiled it after adding sugar,you probably caramelized it.
You want a sugar solution. You could also make a candy board like this:
http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/beekeeping/emergency-feeding/
check around here,he also has  other cold weather tactics!

[Koala John]

Thanks very much for the replies, very helpful indeed. FYI here are the current normal temperature ranges:

Daytime: 60 to 70
Night 30 to 45

I have been giving them sugar on a sheet of newspaper on top of the frames through the year which has kept them going, but was hoping to give them a big boost with some 2:1 syrup. Looks like I should give the baggies a try (I know Cindi is a huge fan!), as well as going back to the sugar.

Given the temperatures above, any reason to believe that the baggies would not work?

Thanks again,
John.

[JP]

The baggies should work great!


...JP

[Cindi]

John, yes I am a fan of the baggie feeders.  One reason is that, with the baggie feeder on top of the inner cover, the heat from the hive keeps the sugar syrup warm, and this entices the bees to feed, they really do prefer the warm syrup, as compared to cold syrup.  I have used inner frame feeders and I don't really like them very much, guess they have their place, like when the weather is warm, but I always found the syrup crystalized fast when the weather was colder.  Beautiful day in this great life we all deserve.  Cindi

[Ross]

The simpliest winter feed is to spread newspaper over 3/4 of the top bar space, dampen with a sprayer, and pour dry sugar on it, then dampen the sugar to hold it in place.  Put an empty box over it and walk away.  You can feed many pounds of sugar this way.  The moisture from the hive is absorbed into the sugar (helping moisture problems) and the bees eat away at it for weeks.  Mine built up nicely on this regimen.

[Brian D. Bray]

The simpliest winter feed is to spread newspaper over 3/4 of the top bar space, dampen with a sprayer, and pour dry sugar on it, then dampen the sugar to hold it in place.  Put an empty box over it and walk away.  You can feed many pounds of sugar this way.  The moisture from the hive is absorbed into the sugar (helping moisture problems) and the bees eat away at it for weeks.  Mine built up nicely on this regimen.

Feeding sugar in such a way is usually considered a last ditch effort to feed or save a starving hive during a time they might not take syrup.  It is not recommended for "normal" beekeeping management practices.

[Ross]

Not recommended by who?  Several of us on the other bee board have tried it with great success.  It's much simpler, particularly for outyards.  If it works, why is it "not recommended".  Just because it wasn't done that way forever?  Do a little research and try some things, you might be surprised.  If you will note, he has a problem getting them to take syrup and the hives are light.  This fills that need precisely.  My bees built up for spring on it quite well.  Someone needs to tell them that it isn't "proper".

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215963&highlight=feeding+sugar

[annette]

Wow Ross

An amazing post their. It sure sounds easier than hassling with the sugar syrup. I think I will look into this more.

Annette

[Ross]

3 years ago I asked the same question and got the "no" answer.  Since then, people have experimented and worked it out.  The trick is to dampen it so they know it's food, and to pack it together so it acts like a candy board (a very old technique).  It seems to work best for late fall and winter feeding, but I used it in late Feb and March here with good success for early build up on a hive that was completely out of stores.  They looked better at the end of March than anything in that yard.

[Brian D. Bray]

As I said, it is considered an emergency feeding method, therefore not recommended for "normal" operations.  I didn't say it wouldn't work.  The problem with the direct sugar method is, that even moistened, the sugar requires a lot more water to process into something usuable by the bees.  In very cold weather this can mean the bees will still starve if there is not enough condensation in the hive to meet the needs of processing the granulated sugar.  It is a method used when the weather is too cold to feed syrup, which means they bees won't leave the hive for a water source either so it is hard on the bees, but it can keep a cluster from total starvation.

I hope that explains things a bit more.  Just because something works doesn't mean it is the best option.

[annette]

I understand Brian. Well good to know about this for emergency.

Annette

[Koala John]

Thanks very much to everyone for your opinions and advice.
I read all of your replies, and was torn between wanting to try again to get as much syrup into them as fast as I can, and just accepting fate and going with the emergency sugar feed. Being a beginner without a mentor, I decided to try all three things - paint cans, baggies and dry sugar on newspaper! I have 10 hives, so was able to try them all in various combinations.
Here's what I found.....

When I made bigger holes in the lids, most of the paint tins placed directly over the cluster were drained almost overnight. The cans set to one side of the cluster were generally not touched. Reasons for this are now fairly obvious to me given what you all told me. However I was worried that the holes in the lid were too big and that perhaps the syrup had just leaked all over the bees. I tested this theory out and refilled an empty can and set it upside down outside for two days. No syrup was lost, so it seems that the bees were draining them when they were over the cluster.

The baggies were a big success too, with three out of four drained. One was untouched, I suspect because I didn't puncture the bag properly. Most of the bees were also taking the sugar too, an indication for me that times are very tough for my bees right now.

So in retrospect, it seems that the reason they were not taking the syrup initially was that I made the holes in the lid too small, and the syrup crystalised, covering the holes. As temperatures continue to fall down here, I'm going to switch from the tins to the baggies, and will keep using them until they stop taking them. I'll keep the dry sugar up to them all Winter.

Thanks again for your help, apologies for the long post, but I learn most when people post updates to problems they've received advice on and I want to try and do the same.

Best regards,
Koala John.

[JP]

Hey, good luck John, the thing with the baggies is, you wanna make slits on the top of the bag with a razor knife. You want the syrup to barely ooze, the bees actually kinda just suck the syrup down with their proboscis, bee tongues.


...JP

[Cindi]

Koala John, hey, don't ever worry about a longish type post, I am notorious for that.  We love to hear these experiences and you are experimenting, and we are all listening and maybe learning a little too.  Good.  You are finding out what works for you.  Excellent.  Keep us posted all the time on what you are up to, we listen.  Have that beautiful, wonderful day, keep on keepin' on.  Cindi