Autumn feeding of bees. 

Generally at this time of year after we have extracting the honey harvest, depending on the stores in the hives we may need to feed our bees to sustain them over the winter.

Following an inspection if you find that there are not enough stores in the brood box (typically 7 or 8 frames of stores) they will need additional food.

Some beekeepers leave a super on top for the winter to boost stores available. This is fine and will pick up any slack that there may be in the broodbox. However, there may be a couple of disadvantages, The bees may fill the super with ivy crystallized honey. in spring time you may well have a full super of ivy honey to deal with - on each hive. Some beekeepers that have a good few hives use these frames to set up nucs in late spring or early summer but if you have a number of hives you end up with a lot of ivy honey and not knowing what to do with it. This also meant these frames are not available to you for next years honey production. If you do leave a super on for the winter remember to remove the queen excluder!

If you are not leaving a super on then its absolutely necessary to boost the stores in the brood box if there is not enough there as above in paragraph 2. Syrup can be bought or made up at home, this time of year we use 2:1 ratio sugar to water. So for example 2 pint glasses of white granulated sugar to 1 pint glass of water and multiply up as required.

Use a big pot or saucepan. there are a number of methods recommended but the writer mixes it all cold as per the ratio above 2 pint glasses sugar 1 pint glass water at a time and so on until you have the required quantity or you are within about 50mm from the top of the pot. Put the pot on full heat and here i must stress DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED - stir gently and constantly, making sure particularly for the 1st few minutes to concentrate on the bottom of the pot keeping the mixture suspended.

Continue stirring gently, occasionally feeling the side of the pot, DO NOT LET THE SOLUTION BOIL. When you cannot comfortably hold the side of your hand to the pot for more than a few seconds turn the heat down to less than half. Most of the sugar should now be dissolved. Let the solution sit undisturbed for 30 or 40 seconds. if you cannot see the bottom of the pot continue stirring occasionally at the lower temp and again letting rest. continue this until the solution is clear and you can see the bottom.

When the solution is clear remove the pot from the heat and allow to cool to room temp over the next few hours. Now it can be put into plastic bottles or other container. The advantage of empty plastic mineral bottles is that the litre volumes are marked on them and you can keep track of how much syrup you have and in turn how much you have fed to your bees keeping a note of the volume of each feed to each hive for your records.

Note 1 - Syrup ratios sugar/water September/Oct 2:1
March/April 1:2
June/July/August(if needed) 1:1

Note 2 - If making syrup DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED
DO NOT BOIL the solution, just 
heat enough to dissolve the sugar.

Note 3. If you are leaving a super on the hive for the winter that you are feeding, remove the super from the hive for the duration of the feeding. You only want them to put syrup into the brood box.

Sugar can be bought in various shops around longford @ €15 for 15kg
All the above is just my experience, Others may have different methods and suggestions that work equally well no doubt but the above works for me. This is by way of a disclaimer!

Signed – The BEEfuddled Beekeeper