I copied this from MB's website (thanks Mike)
What kind of sugar? It matters not at all if it's beet sugar or cane sugar.
It matters a lot if it's granulated white sugar or anything else. Powdered sugar, brown sugar, molasses and any other unrefined sugar is not good for bees. They can't handle the solids.
Pollen is fed either in open feeders for the bees to gather it (dry) or in patties (mixed with syrup or honey into a dough and pressed between sheets of waxed paper). The patties are put on the top bars. A shim is helpful to make room for the patty. I usually do open feeding dry.
Measuring ratios for syrup.
The standard mixtures are 1:1 in the spring and 2:1 in the fall (sugar:water). People often use something other than those for their own reasons. Some people use 2:1 in the spring because it's easier to haul around and keeps better. Some people use 1:1 in the fall because they believe it stimulates brood rearing and they want to be sure to have young bees going into winter. The bees will manage either way. I use more like 5:3 (sugar:water) all the time. It keeps better than 1:1 and is easier to dissolve than 2:1.
The next argument is over weight or volume. If you have a good scale you can find this out for yourself, but take a pint container, tare it (weigh it empty) and fill it with water. The water will weigh very close to a pound. Now take a dry pint container, tare it (weigh it empty) and fill it with white sugar and weight it. It will weigh very close to a pound. So I'll keep this very simple. For the sake of mixing syrup for feeding bees, it just doesn't matter. You can mix and match. "A pints a pound the world around" as far as dry white sugar and water are concerned. At least until you've mixed the syrup. So if you take 10 pints of water, boil it, and add 10 pounds of sugar you'll get the same thing as if you took 10 pounds of water, boil it, and add 10 pints of sugar.
The next confusion seems to be on how much it takes to make how much syrup. The volume of 10 pints of water and 10 pints of sugar will make about 15 pints of syrup, not 20. The sugar and the water fit together.
Don't confuse the issue of how you measure. Measure before you mix. In other words, you can't fill a container 1/3 of the way with water, and add sugar until it's 2/3 full and have 1:1 syrup. You'll get more like 2:1 syrup. Likewise, you can't fill it 1/3 of the way with sugar and then add water until it's 2/3 full and have 1:1 syrup. You'll get more like 1:2. You have to measure both separately and then put them together to get an accurate measurement. I find the easiest is to use pints for water and pounds for sugar since the sugar comes in packages marked in pounds and volume is easy to measure for water. So if you know you are going to add 10 pounds of sugar and you want 1:1 then start with 10 pints of boiling water and add the 10 pounds of sugar.
How to make syrup.
I boil the water and add the sugar and then when it's all dissolved turn off the heat. With 2:1 this can take some time. Either way, boiling the water makes the syrup keep longer by killing all the microorganism that might be in the sugar or the water.
Moldy syrup
I don't let a little mold bother me, but if it smells too funny or it's too moldy I throw it out. If you use essential oils (and I don't) they tend to keep it from molding. Some people add various things to control this. Clorox, distilled vinegar, vitamin C, lemon juice and other things are used by various people to help it keep longer. All of these except the Clorox make the syrup more acidic and closer to the acidity of honey (lower the pH).