When To Feed Bees - Feeding Syrup - Building Colonies for Winter - When to Feed Colonies for Winter

In this video, I'm going to tell you why I prefer 1:1 sugar syrup as opposed to 2:1 sugar syrup as a winter feed. Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. In this video, I'm going to talk to you about winter feeding, and I do say winter feeding in inverted commas because that is the important thing that I'm going to talk about in this video. We'll talk about sugar syrup concentrations, what they do, when you should feed them, and what we're looking for as an end result. So when people talk about winter feeding, I do think there's a lot of confusion out there. So at the moment it's the middle of August, and in the UK this is pretty much the ripe time, give or take a couple of weeks across the country, for people to be going away, taking their honey crops off, getting their medications on for varroa treatments, putting some feed in, which is called a winter feed. But it's the middle of August. Like, I know it rains a lot and it's been pretty cold at the moment in the UK, but this is supposed to be the warmest month of the year. This is supposed to be peak summer over here. So once you've taken your honey crop off and you've put your Apivar treatment on, whatever varroa treatment you're using, the first couple of feeds, they're not winter feeds. I'll use a really nice light mix of sugar syrup, and I use it for a couple of reasons. First reason is it's definitely not winter yet, so the bees, you can give them 2:1 sugar syrup at this time of the year, and they will use it to rear brood. They will use it to store as well. But it's just not really very effective or economic because you're giving them something that they need to go out and break down, put further water into the mix to use it. So you're giving the bees additional work. The second one is what I like to do with my colonies at this time of year is I want to get them really super strong. Winter feeding should be feeding the colony up for winter, feeding the winter bees. In the middle of August, end of August, all of those bees are going to be dead. By the time you get into Christmas, you want to use those bees as best as you possibly can, and by feeding them 1:1 sugar syrup, you're going to turbocharge that colony to start expanding again at the time of year where it's probably not normal for them to expand. And I think that gives you the biggest benefit going into winter and moving towards kind of winter feeding in September and October, and that is as late as I like to go with it really. Bees will take down sugar syrup as long as it's above 11 or 12 degrees, they'll take down 2 to 1 and they will backfill that brood nest. You've got plenty of time to do that, but I like to use a really nice light syrup back end of August, very early September. Get the colony going, get that queen laying, get that brood expanding, which is incredibly energy intensive in terms of syrup going in or nectar going in. And then once the colony is nice and big and strong, then I backfill with really heavy 2:1, and that's what they use as their winter stores. So I'm going to show you that in a colony today. I'm just going to get in there, it's only a little nuc, and I'm just going to show you an example of how strong the colony is now. I'll feed them some 1:1 sugar syrup, hopefully get them building up nice and strong, and then we'll come back later on in the year in a separate video and I'll show you how big that colony has expanded, and I'll move on to 2:1 sugar syrup feeding to get the colony up to weight for winter. So let's get my bee suit on, let's go and take a look at this nuc. Right, so here we are, middle of August at the moment, and I'm going into this nuc here and I'm going to feed it with 1:1 sugar syrup. I do this on the majority of my colonies at this time of year, but I do it on all of my nucs. Middle of August, early August, I go straight in, do my Apivar, nice early varroa treatment, and then I go in there with 1:1 sugar syrup. It's not winter feeding because it's August, supposed to be summer still. So what you're trying to simulate here Is a flow. And by simulating that flow, you stimulate the queen to rear more brood. Especially important in nucleus colonies, but valid across all colonies as well, especially if you've got buckfast bees. That's what I found. You want the bees nice and big and strong going into winter. Take a little bit more feed to get them up to that point, but I find they overwinter so much better when you've got a big strong colony of bees. We'll give it 2 or 3 goes of 1:1 sugar syrup, little and Often you'll hear the term trickle feeding, and trickle feeding is to simulate that flow. If you've got a big polyash forth feeder that takes 15 litres, don't just go and stick on 15 litres because they'll bring it down and they'll just say, this is amazing, we're just going to store all of this honey. You get frames that are completely blocked up and clogged with 1:1 sugar syrup, and then the queen doesn't have anywhere to lay. What you want to do, slow and steady. They're going to bring it down, they're going to use it, turn it into brood, and then when you've got a big strong brood nest, lots of bees, you can fill it late on in the year with 2:1 sugar syrup, and that way you've got a big brood nest, lots of bees, lots of stores at the right time of the year. You don't want your bees ready for winter in August, because come December they are not going to be ready for spring. You need to try and time it with the seasons as best as you possibly can. So I'll show you this nuc here now, I'll show you the stage that it's at, and I'll do 2 or 3 trickle feeds with 1:1 sugar syrup, And then we'll follow it up later on in the year just to show you how big that colony's expanded to when I'm going back doing my 2:1 feeds. So you can see from the colony there, this is not a full nucleus of bees. They're over 3, maybe 4 frames. Got my Apivar strip in there as well, so I'll be knocking down those mites over the next few weeks. But they need a little bit of a kickstart just to get them to where I want them to be. That's what I'm going to do by trickle feeding. I'll get inside. I'm just going to pull out a couple of frames, but I think we're just going to have about 2 frames of brood in here, those 2 central frames. The frames on the outside there, they've not even been touched. No brood in them, no stores in them whatsoever. I want every single frame there covered in bees. So there's my brood frame. Nice pattern, but a noticeable absence of any stores all the way around as well. Nucs like this, they can starve really, really quickly at this time of the year. These ones are light and they will not expand unless they get fed. So same on this frame here, F1 Buckfast queens. How about that? She's looking really good. Nice brood pattern as well, but again, a noticeable absence of any stores. That's probably to do more with the fact that it is just the worst August I can imagine. It's non-stop rained and they're really struggling for any food whatsoever. Uh, that is a half a bee, which is a very strange little thing. Don't often see that, but that is half a bee. So whether I've crushed that or not, feel a little bit bad, but that is a bee with no body, effectively a bee head and legs. Very strange indeed. Anyway, freak show aside, Small amount of brood there. I've checked the other frames as well. There's just 2 frames of brood in here, very little in the way of stores. We're going to trickle feed them up, get them nice and strong. Always important, Apivar strips. We've got 2 frames of brood there, stick them in the middle of the 2 frames of brood. It's the most active part of the brood nest and it's where it's going to be the most effective. If that moves throughout the late summer, early autumn, just move it around to make sure that it's all Always in the brood nest. Don't think, oh, I put that there now, it doesn't need to be moved. Always good to check later on. So I've got the BS Honeybees feeder on this one. Do like the BS Honeybees feeder, definitely one of my favorites. Really, really easy to feed. Get a good amount of 1:1 syrup in there. Make sure you don't do any spills. That is only a small colony, can be battered by wasps in a matter of hours. Make sure you don't spill a single drop. Now with trickle feeding in the BS Honey Bees, I would normally say go for about half full. Nice easy thing to remember, half, maybe a little bit less. That colony was really, really struggling though. There were not enough stores in that colony whatsoever. So first one, I'm just going to completely fill it up, give them a really nice strong boost. You can see within seconds they are straight up onto that syrup. That will be gone tomorrow. They will take that down so quickly. They'll line the brood nest with it as well, and then they'll start filling it up, and that will give the colony such a good start going into autumn and then going into winter. So I've been wanting to do that video for quite a while now, and I know I've changed tack slightly on it before. I've said you can always feed 2:1, and you could feed 2:1 in that situation there, but when you're doing it over hundreds of nucs, hundreds of colonies, it's just not practical or economical to do it with 2:1. I've just mixed up standard 1:1 sugar syrup there, and for the first few rounds of feeding, I find that that is such a good way to get them big and strong going into the winter. Definitely though, later on, do not confuse this with winter feeding. I've said it before, this is August feeding. You've still got autumn feeding to come and then winter feeding as well on top of that. Autumn feeding, winter feeding, definitely want 2:1. August feeding, you can use 2:1, but it's probably a waste of money. The reason we're feeding them here The reason I'm feeding them here anyway, I won't speak for everybody else in the UK or across the world, the reason I am feeding these bees here is to boost the size of that brood nest, to make sure they've got enough stores to get them through to the point where I'm going to feed them for winter, and to get them nice and strong so I've got a big unit of bees, big brood nest going through the winter. So there you go, simple as that. 1:1 sugar syrup, definitely in the back end of August. No need to use 2:1 until it really does get into kind of autumn/winter months. Get your colonies nice and strong before you start using 2:1. Hope you found that video useful. As always, please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time.