Being a beekeeper is not only a special science, but also the subtlest art. Each step is important, each action entails the successful development of the apiary or the loss of bee colonies. One of the most difficult tasks a beekeeper faces is wintering bees. One of the most important conditions for a successful wintering is feeding the bees with sugar syrup for the winter. The proportions that are used, the timing and temperature of top dressing, the feeders intended for this, will be discussed further.
Bee Feeding Rules
The beekeeper has two main tasks:
- To provide conditions for normal bee families to bee families and prevent the pathology of bee development.
- Get a high yield of beekeeping products. This can only be achieved if the basic condition is fulfilled: insects must receive the necessary nutrients.
To do this, three conditions must be provided to bee families:
1. Spring bribes should help the development of viable and strong bees.
2. The main bribe must be long in terms and significant in volume so that the bees can effectively use it to obtain beekeeping products.
3. Autumn bribe should be aimed at strengthening and developing the strength of the bee family.
Features of autumn-winter feeding
If natural honey to feed the bee families is not enough, then bees should be fed sugar syrup for the winter. The rules of its conduct govern a certain time frame:
1. In August, you should start feeding the bees with sugar syrup for the winter. Proportions in sugar syrup: for 1 kilogram of sugar - water 1.5 liters. Serving for daily use - up to 300 grams per hive. This syrup is intended for old bees, which, having processed it, will die during the winter.
2. Nests for wintering should be ready by September. If bee colonies are still in need of feed by this time, then the concentration of syrup should be increased. In such cases, the following feeding of bees with sugar syrup for the winter is carried out : 3 to 2 - the ratio of sugar to water. The amount of feed is also increasing: a daily dose of up to three liters. This is necessary to quickly fill the cells.
3. Winter nutrition consists in regular feeding with honey or sugar syrup in a very small concentration. The daily dose is 15-30 grams.
4. When wintering comes to an end, warm syrup is poured into the honeycombs of one frame and the frame is put into the hive, from where empty honeycombs are previously removed. Then you need to re-do the insulation of the hive.
Bee feeding in autumn
Fall. Going for the winter bee houses require replenishment of food supplies, because in front of the inactive and very difficult period for bee families is winter, with all its cunning and ruthlessness. In order for the bees to successfully survive it, they were ready to give viable offspring in the spring and produce beekeeping products, they must be carefully and timely prepared for the winter period.
Feeding bees with sugar syrup for the winter helps to solve several problems:
- to prepare the necessary fodder stocks if the bee colonies did not manage to cope with this task themselves;
- to reimburse the honey that was seized at the end of the main honey collection;
- replace honey with rapid crystallization and honeydew honey with high-quality syrup;
- drink the bees with therapeutic and prophylactic means, if necessary.
For effective wintering, the best food is considered natural honey, preferably floral. But it’s not always possible to leave it for the bees. In this case, you have to decide on how to feed the bees with sugar syrup.
How to make syrup?
It is very important in the autumn period to prevent strong wear of the bees, it is important to save the energy with which insects break down the polysaccharum and seal the honeycombs. They must complete the necessary work as quickly as possible. In this process, they need the help of a beekeeper - they need to ensure that the bees are fed sugar syrup for the winter, it is advisable to use the following proportions: sugar 3 kg, water 2 l. This will give a solution that is most convenient for processing by bee colonies - 64%.
One of the options for making syrup:
- It’s necessary to take sugar, always light.
- Pour water into a clean container, bring to a boil.
- Pour sugar into boiling water and stir, dissolve it.
- You can (but not necessarily) bring the syrup to a boil and immediately remove from heat. It is contraindicated to boil the syrup, because if the sugar burns, then it will become unsuitable for bees.
- Cool the syrup to 30 degrees and distribute to the bees. Bee families will be reluctant to take cold syrup.
There are important points in the process of preparing a syrup that you need to pay attention to:
- Soft water is recommended. The fact is that in hard water the rate of crystallization of the syrup increases. If hard water is taken as the basis, then first it must be defended, and only after that the process of preparing the syrup begins.
- In order to bring sugar syrup closer to the acid reaction characteristic of flower honey, acetic acid (70%) must be poured into the syrup in a proportion per kilogram of sugar - 0.3 grams. This proportion will bring additional benefits - will give a preventive effect from nosematosis.
The amount of feed is the key to a successful wintering
The bee family should be provided with food in such an amount that will enable each bee to successfully winter. But it is not always possible to correctly calculate the amount of feed needed for this. In such a situation, a convenient way out is to give food in large quantities. If the feed is not used in full, it can be used for the spring development of the bee family.
It is necessary to pay attention that, ensuring the feeding of bees with sugar syrup for the winter, it is necessary to calculate the proportions of feed for a particular bee family, taking into account certain factors:
- in which region the apiary is located: in the south there is a shorter winter, therefore, in such regions in the south forage reserves are needed less;
- Whether wintering takes place on the street or in the wintering ground: if the bees winter on the street, then they need more food than during the wintering in Omshanik;
- family strength: a family wintering, for example, on eight frames, needs much more carbohydrate reserves than a family that will spend the winter on five frames.
The frames that are installed in the nest for wintering should contain food in an amount of more than two kilograms with a total amount of food product of 9-15 kilograms. Some beekeepers, giving recommendations on how to ensure the feeding of bees with sugar syrup for the winter, are advised to increase feed reserves to 30 kg.
In order to process sugar syrup, bees spend energy in large quantities, so part of the feed is used to restore the energy spent. In this regard, not all processed syrup gets into the honeycomb. This should also be taken into account when answering the question of how to feed bees with sugar syrup for the winter.
When to feed?
Beekeeper beginners are often worried about when feeding bees with sugar syrup for the winter begins. The deadlines for the end of the process should be unchanged - not later than September 10, the start of the process is August, this period is regulated by the time of the end of the main bribe and the cessation of pumping honey.
This is explained by the fact that during processing of the syrup, bees wear out. As a result of this, those insects that are engaged in its processing will not be able to survive until spring. Only young bees survive the winter, being in the brood stage in autumn.
If the feeding process takes place throughout September, then two serious problems may appear:
1) Young bees will be connected to the process of processing the syrup, they will also wear out on the processing of feed and will not survive the winter.
2) If the syrup-nectar enters the nest for a long time, the uterus will perceive this as a signal that the bribes are continuing, and it will be worms, that is, lay eggs for a long time. Due to the established cold weather, newly appearing bees will not have time to make their first flyby, as they will late come out of the brood. They will leave stool in the hive, and the bees will not take honey from these honeycombs. In addition, this can lead to the appearance of nosematosis.
The result will be disastrous - the family will die.
If everything is done correctly, then at that moment when the feed will be enough and the nectar stops flowing, the uterus will stop laying eggs.
The conclusion is clear: feeding the bees with sugar syrup for the winter should be carried out in the early stages. Proper feeding will have a beneficial effect on both the younger generation and the new, because young insects will not have to spend effort on coming out of the new generation.
Which feeder to choose?
A bee feeder is necessary for feeding bee colonies. When it comes to how bees are fed sugar syrup for the winter, feeders deserve special attention. In modern beekeeping, the feeder is an element of the hive. In a personal beekeeping farm, the beekeeper remains the choice.
Feeders come in many forms and are installed differently:
- Frame feeder. A small box made of wood or plastic that is able to hold liquid. The width is greater than the width of the hive frame, so it protrudes from the bee house. A syrup is poured into the frame through a funnel and then hanged in a hive near the nest.
- Letkovye feeders. They are installed on the arrival board, and an inverted container filled with food is placed inside.
- Capacitive feeders. The fluid is held in vacuo. It is fixed above the bees, the syrup comes out of the small holes made. As such feeders can be used cans.
- Miller's feeder. Mounted on top of the hive subject to careful fitting. There is an entrance for bees.
- Open feeders. Open containers into which syrup is poured. They are placed near the entrance to the hive.
- Raft feeder. It is made of plywood, it is used with an open feeder-barrel of a large volume.
- Bottom feeder. A wooden partition wall is located inside the hive near the entrance. Syrup is poured into the resulting gap.
Bag feeders
It is possible to provide feeding of bees with sugar syrup for the winter in bags with plastic zipper. You can use the most ordinary plastic bags, but of good quality - this is important to avoid breaking the bag.
Syrup is poured into packets, which the bees suck out through incisions made with a sharp blade. When the syrup poured into the bag cools down, excess air is released from the bag and tied in a bundle 3 cm above the syrup. Cuts in packages can not be done, as the bees themselves can gnaw a thin film, getting to the feed. Packages are placed on the upper bars of the frames. Then the tied bag is sprayed with ready-made syrup, showing the stripes where the lure is located.
The feeder can be used at low air temperatures, since it is heated by the bee family itself. The dose for using sugar syrup at a time should be given taking into account the strength of the bee colony. So, the bee family, which has great power, can process syrup in an amount of up to 6 liters in one night, in spring this amount will decrease.
The cost of such a feeder consists only of the price of the package itself. The only drawback is that such packages can be used only once, and to replace it with a new one, you need to disturb the bee family.
Forced feeding in winter
Sometimes at the end of January there is a need to carry out additional top dressing in the winter. Such top dressing is a necessary and undesirable measure.
For beginning beekeepers who decide the question of how to feed the bees with sugar syrup in the winter, the instruction will not be superfluous:
- If there was a need to carry out forced feeding, then to minimize the negative consequences, you should stop choosing the type of food that will not cause unnecessary excitation by the bee family and will not cause diarrhea.
- When giving food, it is necessary not to disturb the peace of the club and, if possible, to prevent the bee family from leaving the hive.
- Winter top dressing is best done using thick foods: sugar candy or fudge. They are placed above the bee club.
- If feeding bees with sugar syrup for the winter is necessary, at what temperature can this be done - an important question. Such top dressing will be successful if the temperature in the winter hut is from 3 to 5 ° C.
- Sugar syrup with a temperature of 25-30 ° C is filled with honeycombs, can-feeders, ceiling feeders and put them close to the club of bees, close the ceiling and insulate the hive.
- If low temperatures in the winter house make feeding impossible, it is necessary to transfer the bee families for a day to a specially prepared dark room where the temperature is set at 25 ° C. This activates the bees that leave the winter club and actively disperse throughout the nest, looking for food.
- A day later, the bee colony is taken back to the winter house, and in its place they bring a new batch that needs to be fed.
Sugar syrup - a successful winter
Feeding bees with sugar syrup for the winter will be successful if striped will be given the opportunity to absorb it well.
When feeding, it should be borne in mind that a certain number of bees will die or leave the hive in any case. And the worse the weather, the more likely they are to get lost. This is explained by the fact that the bees negatively perceive the invasion of their personal territory. These losses are almost impossible to avoid, but they can be minimized.
To do this, feeding bees with sugar syrup for the winter should be carried out correctly, feeding rules should be observed taking into account the required amount of sugar syrup and taking into account the timing and temperature of feeding. Only if all the conditions are met, the honey will turn out to be of high quality, and the bees will be viable.