How to cook sugar syrup for bees. How to cook sugar syrup for feeding bees? Features of additional feeding in spring and autumn

The winter period is the most difficult and stressful for bees. At this time, they need enhanced nutrition, as insects need energy to heat their bodies. Sugar syrup is considered to be a common food for bees. It is useful and nutritious, contributes to the fight against diseases. Its effectiveness depends on the correct preparation of the syrup and compliance with generally accepted concentrations.

The need for top dressing

In winter, the bees in the hive must be fully provided with food. The best "dish" for insects is natural honey accumulated by them during the collection period. Most apiary owners are engaged in the consumption of honey for their needs or its sale, so spending such a product on insects is unprofitable. In these cases, they resort to the use of sugar syrup.

The product is widely used in other cases, for example, if:

nutrient reserves consist exclusively of honeydew honey, which leads to serious problems for the digestive system of insects when consumed;
there is no necessary natural bribe for the normal process of oviposition in the uterus;
in bad weather during the summer period, honey collection was not carried out or was insufficient;
it is necessary to somehow compensate for the main bribe;
bees need to take a medicine;
winter is approaching, when the consumption of nutrients by insects increases markedly.

The positive effects of using sugar syrup as a dietary supplement include:

strengthening the immunity of insects;
prevention of the development of diseases and infections;
no rot inside the hives.

Features of feeding

Despite the obvious effectiveness of the use of a sugar agent, this method is not always allowed to be used. So, only strong, well-formed bee colonies are allowed to give this substance. It is impossible to abuse such means, since the result of this is a weakening of the state of health of insects.

It is necessary to treat bees with syrup in strictly defined terms. Feeding too early will not give the desired result, and too late will lead to the fact that the insects will not have time to cope with the processing of the product, since at temperatures below 10 ° C, the level of invertase (enzyme) production drops sharply. The consequences of late feeding will be as follows:

insects will not be able to complete a full flight, and they will die;
a severe negative impact will be exerted on the body of bees;
the brood is at risk of being infected with varroa mites.

In the northern regions, it is allowed to start feeding in August, but sometimes they are carried out in the fall. In the central zone, feeding lasts from August 15 to September 7, and in the south it continues until the end of the first autumn month, and in some cases until October 8-10. Top dressing in the spring is usually completed by March.

Best of all, the syrup is processed at an air temperature of 20 ° C. The optimal time of day for top dressing is in the evening, when the risk of bee theft is noticeably reduced.

For cooking, it is allowed to use only commercial sugar, all other varieties are potentially dangerous for insects. The product should be slightly warm, but not hot. Feeders for the product used should be installed on the roof of the hive. To prevent the bees from drowning in the liquid, the feeding containers are covered with wooden or straw bridges. It is allowed to feed through the honeycombs, but care must be taken that the syrup does not flow out of them.

cooking recipes

A special scheme has long been developed and successfully applied, according to which it is possible to calculate how much mixture will be required in winter. Approximately 2 kg of feed falls on one bee street. This mass is enough to feed about 3 thousand insects.

Cooking a nutrient is allowed only in strictly defined proportions. Information about them is contained in the table below. It should be borne in mind that failure to comply with these data will make the product unsuitable for consumption, and the bees will refuse to drink it. Thus, a 70% mixture is usually overly thickened and not suitable for food.

Proportions for making syrup

To boil the syrup, water in an enameled container is brought to a boil. Then sugar is added to the liquid and mixed until completely dissolved. The mixture is left to cool to 40°C.

Some experienced beekeepers recommend adding vinegar to create and maintain an acidic environment. In addition, this substance contributes to the accumulation of body fat of bees, thereby reducing the volume of the consumed product and increasing the number of brood. 3 ml of acetic acid or 4 ml of essence is diluted with 10 kg of sugar. Instead of vinegar, it is allowed to add about 1 g of citric acid.

Too thick syrup is not suitable for consumption, as the bees will convert it to a more acceptable state, and for this they will need to use their moisture reserves. An excessively liquid agent is also undesirable for insects, because such food will be digested much longer, which in the future is fraught with a fatal outcome for the entire swarm.

The prepared product is usually stored in glass jars with a tightly closed lid, but it can be kept in sachets. Before use, the syrup does not require additional boiling.

It is known that, if necessary, it is possible to add not only medicines, but also folk remedies for the treatment of diseases. So, if the family is sick with nosematosis or there are suspicions of the development of this disease, it should be treated with wormwood syrup (in the ratio of 10 g of wormwood infusion per 100 ml of nutrient).

Invert Syrup

An effective nutrient for bees is sugar syrup with the addition of honey. Such a mixture is considered more nutritious and healthy. Pure sugar syrup in some cases has a negative effect on the bee organism. For 1 kg of sugar, about 40 g of honey is usually taken. It is customary to call such a composition inverted due to the fact that the process of transformation, that is, inversion, of sugar into glucose takes place much faster in it.

The syrup must always be fresh. Insects that have been fermented or stored for a long time will not eat. Like other types of this substance, it is placed either on a special feeder or in a jar turned upside down on a low stand.

Scheme of use

It is important to correctly develop a schedule according to which the bees will receive the nutrient. First, two empty frames are placed in the center of the hive, on which the insects will leave fresh sugar honey. As it is completed, the bees will begin to move to the sides of the frames, on which the flower honey will be located.

Top dressing is carried out according to one of two generally established technologies, depending on the purpose of the procedure:

1. To grow strong brood, it is customary to artificially stretch the feeding period by using 0.5-1 l of syrup daily until all combs are filled.
2. With normal feeding, a single application of 3-4 liters of syrup is sufficient, which will fully meet the needs of bees in an average-sized hive.

It is worth considering the method of wintering insects. If the bees are kept in a omshanik, then they do not have to spend a lot of energy on heating themselves and their homes, so the amount of nutrient can be slightly reduced. Insects wintering on the street require a full amount of food.

Similar ways of feeding

Ready-made nutrient mixtures for feeding bees began to appear on sale. Such products are considered safer for insects. Individuals look healthier and larger after feeding with such a drug. The only downside to date is their high cost.

It is also allowed to use the so-called Kandy top dressing, which is a honey-sugar dough. It is customary to give the substance to bees in the winter. It is rich in carbohydrates, which are necessary for them in the cold season. This solution is widely used in the period of disease control, certain medicinal preparations are added to it.

1. 0.5 kg of bee bread and 1 kg of honey are diluted in 0.5 l of water and mixed thoroughly.
2. The mixture is passed through a sieve or gauze.
3. Within 2 days, the resulting solution is infused, after which it is ready for use.

Each bee family needs 0.5 liters of the mixture every two days.

How to feed bees in autumn: when to start, feeding recipes with proportions and how to give them correctly.

Why feed the bees in autumn

We all know that our bees need to be fed in winter and spring. Everyone understands why. But why feed them in the fall? After all, they seem to have honey, it is fresh. What else do they need? However, we forget about one important point - we started an apiary so that we would have honey, respectively, we will take most of it from the bees. Or, for example, the summer was rainy and the bribes were weak. Here is the answer to this question. Among other reasons, these are the main three:

honey is highly sugary;
large reserves of honeydew honey have accumulated (it will not work normally to winter on it);
There is food, but the bees are inactive and they do not have enough strength and time to seal the honey.

What to feed the bees in autumn

In Russia, each beekeeper has his own recipes for all occasions (like fishermen's bait recipes). This is all because our beekeepers really care and worry about their wards. Ticks appeared - they added thyme (thyme) to sugar syrup, found signs of nosematosis - added a little hot pepper. If everything is fine in the apiary, then just for the sake of prevention, you can add a couple of drops of coniferous decoction to the top dressing to improve immunity. In Europe, a more commercial approach is thriving in beekeeping. Everyone feeds the bees wet sugar or sweet dough (kandy).

Sugar and water, that's all. No recipes, proportions, etc. Simple and effective. But without a soul.

In America, corn syrup is preferred. At the same time, their bees winter well and give good bribes. True, their winters are not like ours. From this short introduction, you already understood what to put in the feeders:

sugar syrup in different proportions;
sugar with honey;
sweet dough Kandy.

What is the best of all - everyone decides for himself. If the wintering was successful, then everything was done correctly. We believe that it is best to leave more honey for the bees by autumn and let them spend the winter on their reserves. But in winter, the hives still need to be checked and fed as needed.

Code to start autumn feeding

The timing of the autumn feeding of bees may vary, but not much. In the middle lane, you can start at the end of August and end on September 10-12. Late (September) top dressings are recognized as not quite physiological.

Late feeding with sugar (in the second half of September) triggers the functioning of the wax glands. And this is an additional expenditure of strength and protein reserves in the bee's body. As a result, families leave for wintering weaker and exhausted.

How to feed

For the feeding period, combs are removed from the hive and special feeders are placed. They can be both ceiling-mounted and ordinary from cans with a volume of 1-3 liters.

You can use ordinary packaging bags, plastic bottles, empty honeycombs, that is, everything you can think of.

All these methods are far from perfect and time-consuming. A constant spill of syrup provokes excessive aggression, so it is better to use a ceiling feeder. It is most convenient to do this in multi-hull hives. In the upper part there is a passage for the bees, and the feeder itself is installed in an empty case.

What to feed in autumn?

Sugar syrup for autumn has a high concentration. As a rule, it is made in the following proportions:

for one liter of water - two kilograms of sugar;
one to one.

Often for feeding, especially in autumn, beekeepers use inverted sugar. Such sugar is easier for bees to digest. Invert sugar syrup for bees can be prepared at home using acetic or citric acid. It is just needed in order to produce the hydrolysis of sucrose and the bees did not waste their strength on this process.

Among Russian beekeepers, the recipe of I. A. Melnichuk is most often used with the following proportions:

honey - 7.5%;
sugar - 74%;
water - 18.5%;
concentrated acetic acid - 0.03%.

After mixing all the components, the syrup is kept at a temperature of 35-36 ᵒС for a week.

Melnichuk's recipe is not the only one, there are others. For example, the simplest one: for 3 kg of sugar, 2 liters of water. Boil water and add sugar. Mix thoroughly and chill. Then add 70% vinegar essence 1 ml, or at the rate of 0.3 ml per kilogram of sugar. This top dressing is ready for use in the form of heat.

Don't rush while cooking. If the syrup burns even a little, it will not be possible to give it to the bees. Get hurt.

Natural honey is a complex product and no artificial nutrition can replace it. To facilitate the digestion of syrup by bees, enzymes are added to it, which help to decompose sucrose.

Disputes between beekeepers about whether to feed the bees in the fall with invert syrup or plain sugar have been going on for a very long time. Those who conducted experiments in their apiary noticed:

inverted feed does not crystallize in either open or printed combs;
bees process syrup well and print honeycombs;
wintering passes with less losses:
exit from wintering is more friendly, massive, fast;
the spring stools of the bees were thick and threadlike;
queens carried out stable and progressive oviposition.

The recipe for sugar syrup for autumn feeding of bees is not complicated. It must be given to bees in a warm form (temperature 25-27 ᵒС). Check the temperature with a simple touch. Cold top dressing bees take worse. As a result, even after correctly calculating the amount of syrup needed for wintering, there may be excess.

Invert syrup for bees with citric acid

Disputes about which acid to use to acidify sugar syrup also do not subside. Opponents of vinegar essence claim that it is better to use citric acid for inversion, since it is she who participates in the biochemical processes that take place in the body of an insect and cannot cause harm.

How to make invert sugar syrup and what proportions are needed:

sugar - 1 kg;
citric acid - 2 g;
water - 1 l;

Procedure:

dissolve sugar in water;
put the bowl with the future syrup on heat and bring to a boil;
add citric acid;
continue heating for another 1 hour on the smallest fire.

To prepare the inverted syrup correctly, it is better to heat it in a water bath for 2-2.5 hours. In this case, the process will take place slowly, but at a stable temperature not exceeding 70 ᵒС, and the results will be the most optimal.

Invert lactic acid syrup

Lactic acid is organic and is also used for sugar inversion.

In order to prepare invert lactic acid syrup, you need to take:

water - 3 l;
sugar -5.5 kg;
lactic acid - 10 g.

All components are mixed and heated in a water bath for 30-40 minutes.

Some beekeepers use natural inversion. For this, 8 kg of honey and 70 kg of sugar are taken for 20 liters of water. After preparing the syrup, it must be kept at a temperature of about 35 ᵒС for 6-7 days. If the weather is very hot, then use the sun, and wrap well at night. Light warming is allowed.

honey full

Another recipe: honey full. For its preparation, water is boiled, cooled to 50 ᵒС, and one kilogram of honey is added to one liter of water. If necessary, stimulating and medicinal substances are added.

Prepared dressings must be fresh. So that the preparation of autumn feeding of bees is not superfluous, the calculation is carried out on the family.

Some beekeepers do not calculate the dose too much, and the remaining syrup is stored in the refrigerator.

Feeding time

Top dressing is poured in the evening, when everyone who flew out of the hive on business returned home. The amount must be calculated so that by the morning it is all eaten. If there is more feeding, then the bees in search of a bribe will begin theft.

Try not to spill the syrup near the hive, otherwise ants and other lovers of free sweets will come to visit.

Autumn feeding with sugar syrup is suitable only for strong families. If the family is weak, put frames with honey to feed.

Many beekeepers, especially after wintering is unsuccessful, refuse to fertilize with syrup in the fall and leave honey. In their opinion, after honey top dressing, next year's bribes are much better, and wintering is going well. To be honest, we are completely for the fact that the bees spend the winter on their honey.

Scientific approach to beekeeping

Scientists have learned how to use yeast and microscopic fungi to obtain purified, concentrated immobilized or free invertase, which cannot be prepared at home.

Now there is no longer any need for self-preparation of inverted syrup, there are ready-made top dressings that can be bought in beekeeping stores.

During its life, a small bee provides honey to several adults. In turn, a careful attitude, proper care for a hardworking insect is required from a person. Experienced beekeepers know that if you are striving for abundant supplies of honey, it is imperative to feed the bees with sugar syrup during the honey collection and wintering.

Opinions regarding the advisability of additional feeding of bee colonies differ. Some beekeepers believe that this procedure will harm the health and reproduction of insects. But when there is a question of saving the lives of the inhabitants of the hives, even skeptics are preparing syrup to feed the bees.

The sweet mixture is used at different stages of the honey season. In each season of the year, the need for additional nutrition is caused by various reasons, including:

building strength, working capacity of the family;
harvesting more honey;
replenishment of feed stocks;
increase in the number of brood;
increase the immunity of insects to diseases;
cure for diseases;
eliminating the need for early departures in cold weather.

There are situations when the weather throws up unpleasant surprises: severe frosts in late spring, rainy, cold summers, prolonged winters, and others. Under such circumstances, the bee family is not able to expand food supplies or provide food for itself. As a result, some of the working individuals die, the uterus, on which the life of the entire hive directly depends.

How to prepare sugar syrup for feeding?

Food for insects from water and sugar is easy to prepare, does not require many ingredients, and satisfies the nutritional needs of insects. To enhance the usefulness, taste, the addition of honey, molasses, vinegar essence, and medicinal additives to combat diseases is allowed. Depending on seasonal needs, sugar is diluted with water in several proportions.

The preparation of sugar var according to the classic recipe is carried out according to the scheme:

The ratio of sugar and water is 3:2 (60% concentration).
Water is brought to a boil in an enameled container.
The liquid is removed from the fire, cooled by a few degrees.
The required amount of white sugar without impurities is added.
The mixture is thoroughly stirred until the sugar dissolves.
The finished product is cooled to a warm state.

To bring the composition of the mixture closer to the food of the bee family, honey is added to it (50 g per 1 kg of sugar), vinegar essence (3 ml per 10 kg of sugar). These products, decoctions of medicinal herbs, medicines are added to the cooled ready-made syrup base. Liquid in other proportions is prepared in a similar way.

Beekeepers use several methods to ensure that insects have access to additional liquid food. Popular are:

placing food in special feeders, which are installed near the hives, and when wintering on the street, directly in the box itself;
the use of jars with a neck tied with a dense layer of gauze, which are placed upside down on the top cover of the hive;
pouring liquid into plastic bags that are placed on the top wall or lowered directly into the hive.

Analyzing the reviews of beekeepers, the simplicity, convenience, and effectiveness of the latter method stand out. Plastic bags are an economical material, choosing a strong reliable product prevents the flow of liquid into the hive.

Up to 1 liter of the mixture is placed in a separate plastic bag. After packaging, air is removed from the container, after which a reliable knot is tied. 2-3 micro-holes are made in the bag, but it is better to drop a little sweet mixture on the surface and the little workers will make access to food for themselves.

Spring feeding of bees with sugar syrup

Spring is considered the most important period in the life of bees, on which the sufficient replenishment of the family population, the working productivity of individuals, and the amount of honey flow depend. After the first flight, the bee colony needs to replenish its forces after wintering.

If the spring is early, warm, there is a honey base nearby, and there were enough winter supplies, then the insects will be able to organize their own food. In the opposite situation, beekeepers can help replenish the energy reserves of the inhabitants of the apiary by top dressing.

More often, bees are fed with sugar syrup in spring, the proportion of sugar and water in which is 2:3 (40% concentration) or 1:1 (50% concentration). Such combinations stimulate egg laying. Liquid food is similar to the nectar secreted by flower plants, so it is well absorbed.

When top dressing after the flight, weather conditions are taken into account. A more liquid syrup for feeding bees in the spring should not be given during cold weather, frosts, as this stimulates insects to fly out of the hives. Weakened after the winter, the inhabitants of the apiary under the influence of bad weather can die or catch the disease.

Supplementary food during the autumn period is used infrequently, with strict time limits observed. Top dressing during this period is caused by an insufficient supply of prepared food, the need to increase the strength of the inhabitants of the hive before the winter season.

In order not to harm the food system of the insect, which may not have time to process the sugar consistency, weaken, top dressing is carried out from late August to mid-September. In cold regions with severe frosts, you can slightly increase the extreme temporary norm. In this case, 50-60% concentration of sugar food is used.

The late autumn period, when the beekeeper observes meager supplies for the winter, the weakness of the family, allows the placement of additional food in the hives. But in such cases, thick or solid dressings are used, since the liquid composition will disrupt the life cycle of insects.

Feeding bees with sugar syrup in winter

Feeding the bee family in winter is an extreme measure that is used in emergency or unforeseen situations. More often there is a need to replenish the amount of food supplies by the end of winter or the beginning of spring, so early feeding of bees with syrup is used.

During winter-spring feeding, thick consistency of sugar liquid is used, prepared in a ratio of 3: 2, which produces 3.8 liters of the finished product. For a full-fledged family occupying a separate hive, 1 liter of nutrient mixture is enough. The feed is poured into packages, laid on the lid of the box, covered with insulation from above.

If the beekeeper sees that food supplies are over or running out, and the cold is dragging on, then additional replenishment of food supplies is applied. During this period, it is important to strengthen the composition of food with natural flower honey, herbal decoctions, sea salt, vinegar essence, and other useful elements.

Beginning beekeepers should remember that feeding bees in the dead of winter not only disturbs the peace and family life, but also leads to diseases or frostbite. Therefore, it is important to control food supplies before wintering, to replenish them as needed.

Feeding bee families with sugar var is an important measure to preserve their health, which is the duty of every beekeeper. This procedure does not take much time or effort, the sweet composition is prepared according to a simple recipe, but with a high nutritional value. In return, the bees will provide the owner with a sufficient amount of tasty and healthy honey.

In the cold season, beekeepers actively use sugar syrup to feed bees. When the bees do not have enough natural food, preparation and proper feeding of the bees is required. Experienced beekeepers know from experience how to properly prepare sugar syrup, and for those who are faced with such a need for the first time, we will consider in more detail the recipes and methods for preparing syrup.

Why and when do you need to feed with sugar syrup?

Every beekeeper knows that there are periods when the bees do not have enough food supplies and therefore they need to be supplemented with honey or sugar syrup. And if top dressing with honey is considered highly effective and contains all the necessary substances, but is quite expensive, then sugar syrup is a convenient and inexpensive remedy, as well as easy to prepare, but you should not feed bees for too long only with syrup, since with such a diet it is much more difficult for them to grow offspring.

Feeding bees with sugar syrup in bags

Top dressing with sugar syrup is required in the following cases:

To increase the supply of food for bees for the winter period, as well as, if necessary, to replace poor-quality honey for a favorable wintering of bees.
In the spring, with an insufficient amount of food in the hives until the appearance of natural food - pollen and nectar.
To stimulate the cultivation of young offspring in the absence of flowering plants.
For the prevention of foul diseases in apiaries, if there were sick families in the past.

Replenishment of feed is necessary in cases where the bees could not stock up on the necessary amount of provisions or the cold dragged on, and the feed is no longer running out.

How to make syrup. Recipes

Sugar syrup is different depending on the purpose and time of bait. Thus, the proportion of 1 part of sugar to 1.5 parts of water is used to stimulate the rearing of the young generation or to train bees.

1 part sugar to 1 part water is used if there is no bribe at all.

A syrup of 1.5 parts of sugar and 1 part of water is prepared for autumn feeding or changing or replenishing feed.

2 parts of sugar and 1 part of water is prepared during a long winter and forced feeding of a bee colony in a cold spring or winter.

Also, top dressing will be more nutritious if a certain amount of natural honey is added to the syrup.

Classic recipes for feeding syrups

The most important thing at the beginning is to choose the right concentration in the first preparation. The optimal ratio for most beekeepers is 60% sugar and 40% water.

You need to take a suitable enamel pan. Pour the required amount of water into the pan and put on fire.

When the water boils, the right amount of sugar is added to it. It is important to stir the mixture constantly so that the sugar is fully dissolved and the syrup does not burn.

It is necessary to stir until the composition boils. It is not necessary to boil it, and as soon as the necessary state has been reached, the syrup must be removed from the heat and left to cool.

For better cooking, it is necessary that the fire under the pan evenly covers its bottom, and not just the center. Thus, uniform heating of the mass is ensured.

Also known syrups with various additives, aimed at specific purposes.

Syrup is used to feed the uterus, to increase the brood. For such a syrup, additional ingredients are added during the preparation process: phytoncides or cobalt chloride.

For syrup with phytoncides, pine or needles are used. This process is longer, since it requires preliminary preparation of the infusion from water and needles, after preparing the infusion, it must be filtered from the needles and you can start preparing sugar syrup.

Invert syrup is considered more useful than a simple classic recipe. Additionally, honey is added to such a syrup. The proportions of addition are 40 grams of honey per 1 kg of sugar.

Top dressing from honey and bee bread. This recipe completely eliminates sugar. Only bee bread, honey and water are used in proportions: 1 part of bee bread, 2 parts of honey and 1 part of water. All this must be mixed and passed through a sieve, and then left to infuse for two days. After this time, the top dressing is ready. This composition is enough for a long time - one bee family consumes only 0.5 liters of syrup.

How to feed the bees

After preparing special food for bees, many beekeepers have an absolutely logical question - how is it right to feed all this to bees? There are no special difficulties here, but several feeding options are known.

The easiest way is to place the syrup directly into the honeycomb. This process is carried out using a syringe or a teapot with a thin spout.

The second option is a plastic bag. Small holes are pierced in such a bag, approximately 1 liter of syrup is poured into it and placed in the hive. And then the bees will figure it out themselves.

Special feeders in the form of a box are also used, such a feeder is placed on top of the bee nest.

The side frame is also actively used for bait with syrup. If the air temperature is low, then the frame is installed next to the nest, and if it is high, then it is placed behind the diaphragm.

If there are no specialized feeders in the apiary, then ordinary glass jars can be used by beekeepers. For such feeding, the jar is filled to the top with syrup, covered with gauze, previously folded four times. Next, you need to sharply turn the jar over and fix it on the nest frame. The bees will feed on the syrup, sucking it out through gauze and then putting it into the nest cells. For a strong bee family, you can safely fix two or three banks at once.

A little advice for amateur beekeepers! Do not forget about the optimum temperature of the syrup. For better eating by bees, syrup must be placed in the hive warm, approximately 30-35 degrees Celsius, since cold syrup is of little interest to bees, besides, frozen syrup will be much more difficult for striped workers to extract through a dense layer of gauze.

With high-quality preparation of syrup, problems with its use in bees will not arise. Properly prepared syrup they eat with great pleasure, which cannot be said about the burnt syrup or the one that has already been stored for a long time. Moreover, low-quality syrup is harmful to the health of bees. Also, do not forget that although syrup is a complete food for bees, it is still less useful than natural food or food based on honey. Therefore, it is better to avoid long and monotonous feeding of bees only with sugar syrup, it is better to alternate it with honey, so the bees will be stronger, more resilient and healthy, and will also please young offspring more likely.

If you do everything right and approach the issue of feeding bees seriously, then, thanks to feeding, you can be sure of a successful wintering of striped bees in the cold season or with a lack of food. And in the spring, the bees will be more active and healthy, and they will also begin to bring young offspring, which is undoubtedly an advantage.

Bee syrup is a mixture of nutrients with vitamins. This method of additional feeding is used in spring and autumn. In the spring it is used to increase efficiency, maintain the health of the wards and to prepare honey with a high content of special vitamins. Autumn top dressing is used to prepare workers for the winter period, because the operating time created in the summer may not be enough to survive the cold times. In addition to this, various medicines can be added to the mixture to prevent the occurrence of unwanted diseases. In this material, especially for beginners in beekeeping, the most common questions that arise among beginner beekeepers will be considered.

Video: Making syrup for feeding bees

Percentage

Before you start cooking anything, you should make initial calculations and understand how many products we need. Bee syrup also requires similar actions, since if you overfeed the insects, you should not expect good consequences. In addition, a preliminary calculation helps to save a significant amount of money.

A novice beekeeper should take into account that spring top dressing will be used by wards to create new honey. Such a resource can be used in the winter and replace about 30% of natural blanks that were created in the summer. The sugar product is easier for the bees to digest and already contains all the nutrients that were given out in the spring (medicines, vinegar, etc.). In order to correctly calculate the weight of artificial honey, it should be remembered that for its production in the weight of 1 kg, 1 kg of sugar is required, which is contained in additional food.

Preparing a mixture for feeding in the autumn

The proportional ratio of sweet sand to water should be 1.5 kg per 1 liter, this option will make the syrup thick for bees and will be better used by them. The constituent ingredients must be well cleaned of dirt and excess elements (dust, earth, etc.), the water must be pre-cleaned through an additional filter. Below is a table, the ratio of ingredients to end up with a consistency of different density.

The final volume of the resulting product (l)	Percentage, quantitative and proportional ratios of ingredients to obtain different consistency in density.
	2:1 (70%)		1.5:1(60%)		1:1 (50%)		1:1.5 (40%)
	C (in Gy)	V (ml)	from	in	from	in	FROM	in
1	900	500	800	600	700	700	600	800
2	1800	1000	1600	1200	1400	1400	1200	1600
3	2700	1500	2400	1800	2100	2100	1800	2400
4	3600	3000	3200	2400	2800	2800	2400	3200
5	4500	3500	4000	3000	3500	3500	3000	4000

*s - sugar

Cooking is not a particularly complicated process. Initially, bring the water to a boil, then let it cool slightly (2-5 minutes) and add sugar to the container. Mix everything well so that the liquid becomes transparent, and there are no sediments at the bottom. After that, a similar consistency can not be heated. Otherwise, the value of the final product will be lost, and the insects will refuse to use it.

The preparation is considered completed when the liquid lowers the temperature to 30 ... 40 0 C, upon reaching these indicators, 1/10 of its volume is added to the solution with natural honey. Some beekeepers add vinegar to the end result for feeding in the fall. But everyone does this at their own discretion. Most often, this additive is used to create an acidic reaction, which is found in natural honey. According to some reports, bees thanks to vinegar survive cold times better. For addition, vinegar essence (70%) is used, the proportion is 1 ml per 2.5 kg of sweet substance. For each feeding, it is advisable to prepare sugar syrup separately so that it does not stagnate.

Video: How to make syrup for bees in the right proportions

Tricks of beekeepers

The most common problem that professionals face is the use of honey prepared with sugar added in the first place. If this is ensured, then wintering will be much better, because an artificially created resource is worse and it is better to feed it first. To do this, in the fall, during the feeding period, the hive is additionally equipped with frames that need to be made in advance and installed in the middle of the nest. Thanks to this action, most of the artificial honey will gather there, and when the cold weather comes, the insects will begin to eat resources from the center of the nest to its edges and, first of all, will use up the sugar product.

The next question to be dealt with is something like this: "How and when is autumn feeding done." Basically, two methods of issuing additional power are used:

large batch (over 2 liters at a time);
small dosage (1 l.).

The second method is considered the most productive, since insects process a small amount of the resource faster and more efficiently. Autumn weather is colder than summer, and when the temperature regime changes, the amount of the invertase enzyme in the body decreases in bees. In addition to this, in hot weather, the whole swarm works hard, and in autumn all the workers get tired and their productivity decreases several times.

Feeding with a large amount of top dressing at one time is used with a large family in the hive and an already formed offspring (a new generation of female workers). It is desirable to feed with sugar syrup from a separate feeder, it is installed above the swarm's house. This method is effective in autumn and spring, due to the convenient location above the hive, a person does not have to climb into it every time and, accordingly, disturb its inhabitants. But besides this method, sugar syrup can be poured into a pre-prepared plastic bottle with holes, filled with empty honeycombs, or using another option that the beekeeper comes up with. Top dressing is placed in the feeder in a plastic bag, since drops of such a honey substitute should not be allowed to fall on the ground or on the hive. A portion of food should be given out in the evening so that the workers can fully assimilate the resource received overnight. In addition to this, late time helps to avoid the theft of a valuable product by strangers.

Video: Preparation of syrup for autumn feeding of bees

Start and end of supplementary meals

The final question to be dealt with concerns the months and dates for starting and finishing feeding in the fall and spring. To determine these stages in the life of the wards, special attention should be paid to their activity. If the workers began to fly less and there are no flowers with pollen in the area, then this is a reason to start using top dressing. In different regions, this period comes at a certain time. In the south of Russia, after the onset of such a time of decline in activity, additional food should be prepared until the end of September (if the weather is good), and as you move further north, the period decreases and may end as early as early September.

If this time is extended, then this can significantly affect the young offspring. They will most likely not survive until next year, due to the fact that increased feeding leads to a lengthening of the processing time and the creation of a new product. Ultimately, young workers will have to actively participate in this process, which will affect their health. And if the brood does not hatch on time, then it will not have time to make the first flight on time, and all the feces will be inside the combs. Such an act leads to a decrease in the volume of stored honey. In addition to this, the late termination of feeding leads to the disease of nosematosis.

If in the fall or spring the beekeeper did not have time to finish feeding, then for this, the entrances are soldered near the hive and the structure is transferred to a room with 15 0 C. Then, for about 5 days, active feeding is carried out by feeding in large portions.