Making Sugar Syrup for Feeding Bees.
Written for the American Bee Journal
BY G. M. DOOLITTLE.
The following has come to hand from some one who forgot to sign his or her name, so I will answer through the Bee Journal, as requested.
"Will you tell us through the columns of the American Bee Journal just how you make sugar syrup for feeding bees, as I have some bees which will need feeding before long? I think you have given this before, but I cannot find where it is. If I remember rightly, you use honey to a certain extent, and, if so, is there no danger of getting foul brood, where one may have to buy honey for this purpose?"
In answering the above, it may be well, and interesting to the reader, to know just how I came to hit on the formula for sugar syrup, which I have given several times before in the different bee-papers, as hinted at by our correspondent.
Some years ago, after a poor season, I found that all of my queen-rearing colonies would have to be fed, as well as some of the others, so I set about looking up recipes for making the feed, as I had no surplus combs of honey. I found plenty of recipes telling how to make it, using vinegar, cream-of-tartar and tartaric acid in greater or less quantities to keep the syrup from candying or crystallizing. When about concluding to use one of these, I ran across one that said all that was necessary to do was to pour boiling water on the granulated sugar, stirring both together as long as the water would dissolve any more sugar. As this seemed so simple I concluded to use this.
Having the syrup made and the feeders in the hive, I proceeded to feed, all going well the first feed. When I came to feed the second night, I found the feed skimmed over with a crust of sugar which had formed on the surface during the 24 hours it had been standing. I also found that it had granulated on the bottom and sides of the can, and upon going to the hives I found a little on the bottom and sides of the feeders. However, I persisted in feeding it, as the one giving the plan said nothing was needed to keep the syrup from crystallizing, as the bees put acid enough into it in manipulating to keep it a liquid.
After a few days, I noticed bees out at the entrance of the hive of each colony fed, having little grains of sugar on their wings and bodies, trying to fly, but most of them had so much on them that they could only hop around, making a purring sound with their wings. I next looked inside of the hive, when I found that fully one-fifth of the bees had more or less of these sugar crystals on them, while the inside of the feeders was all covered with crystals. Upon looking into the cells containing the syrup, I found that in many of them crystallization had commenced to such an extent that the crystals were easily seen. I said this would not answer, so when the next batch of syrup was made, I put vinegar in the water before stirring in the sugar. While the vinegar helped about the crystals, it also gave a taste to the syrup which I did not like, so in the next I tried cream of tartar, and then tartaric acid; but in spite of them all, the syrup would crystallize some, unless I added so much that a disagreeable taste was given the syrup.
It now came to me, how in early years I had used, owing to scarcity of honey at our house, honey and sugar mixed, on the table, in which case neither the honey nor sugar granulated, so the next batch of syrup was made as follows:
Fifteen pounds of water was put into a large tin dish and brought to a boil, when 30 pounds of granulated sugar was poured in and stirred for a moment till it had mostly dissolved, when it was left over the fire till it boiled again. Upon taking from the fire, five pounds of honey was poured in, and the whole stirred enough to mix thoroughly. I found in this a syrup of about the consistency of honey, which remained a liquid from day to day—a syrup that any bee-keeper could easily make, and one which would not crystallize on the bees, feeders or in the cells. I have kept this syrup standing in an open dish for months at a time without its crystallizing or souring.
It has now been some 10 or 12 years since the experiments above given were tried, and during all that time I have never found how I could improve on this food for feeding bees for winter stores. For spring feeding, I would use 25 pounds of water to the same amount of sugar and honey, as this gives better results in brood-rearing than does the thicker syrup.
As to there being any danger, should it so happen that honey from a foul-broody colony was used, I would say that there need be no fears, for if the honey is stirred in as above given, it will all be scalded, and the scalding of honey anything else having the germs of foul brood about or in it, effectually kills these germs. However, care should be used in handling honey which may have come from a foul-broody hive, as the least bit of it carelessly left where the bees can get it, while in its raw state, will carry with it the seeds of foul brood, just as surely as corn grows from seed corn.
There is one other item I wish to notice before closing, and that is where our correspondent hints at its being necessary to feed his bees before long. If, as I suspect, the correspondent lives in the North, he should have fed the bees in October what they needed to carry them through the winter. This is a duty he not only owes to himself, but to the bees also, for, while bees often do come through the winter when fed during cold weather, yet the chances are that a loss of colonies will not only waste the bees, but the syrup fed as well.
Borodino, N. Y.
