Feeding bees in August with syrup

Bees are suppliers of not only such a medicinal product as honey, but also wax. So that they do not die and perform their functions, they need to be fed. When to carry out the procedure and what is used as a top dressing is described below.

Why feed bees

Insects prepare a supply of honey for the winter on their own. But it happens that stocks are not enough until the end of the season. To do this, you need to provide them with additional food.

With an insufficient amount of honey, bees feed on substitutes: fructose and glucose. Fruit juices are not suitable for this, glucose solution is also not suitable for nutrition. Beekeepers do not recommend using starch syrup. The optimal product for feeding bees is regular sugar.

Experienced beekeepers practice replacing honey with sugar syrup. This is due to the fact that it crystallizes much more slowly than honey, and is much easier to digest.

Bees

Feeding bees in August with syrup is carried out for the following purposes:

• Stimulation of the worming process of the queen bee, increasing the number of insects for the winter. In this case, you need to accurately calculate the time before the onset of frost. The hatched brood should have time to fly around and prepare for winter. This feeding takes 7 to 10 days. As soon as food stops flowing, the uterus stops laying eggs. Therefore, the subcortex is carried out from early August to mid-September. When stimulated, bees are best served with warm food. It is recommended to choose the evening time for feeding. At the same time, pour up to 250 g of feed into the feeder. If the bees eat every other day, 500 g of syrup is poured into the feeder, and when feeding insects once every 7 days, the amount of feed increases to 1 liter. You also need to ensure that the feed in the feeders does not sour.
• Increase in feed stocks (incentive). The main thing is not to overdo it with the amount of feed. The bees will fill all the combs with them, but there is not enough space for the worming of the queen.
• Medicinal. For various diseases of insects, drugs are added to the syrup. For example, fumagillin DCG, fumicide B are used for the treatment of nosematosis. The agent is dissolved in a small amount of liquid, and then added to the syrup. You can get rid of foulbrood by adding antibiotics (erythromycin, monomycin, oxytetracycline, kanamycin, streptomycin) to the feed. This syrup is given to bees after 3 days until they are completely cured. When making a diagnosis of American or European foulbrood, it is recommended to add the drug oxyvit to bees' feed. For the treatment of parasites, you can use drugs such as chloramphenicol, neomycin, erythromycin, having previously determined the sensitivity of bees to each of the drugs. It is recommended to add 400 thousand units of medicine to 1 liter of syrup. You can also get a good result for the treatment of parasites by using bactopol or oxyvit.

Feeding bees in August has a direct impact on their health and productivity.

Feeding bees

When, how and what to feed

It takes bees approximately 14 days to process sugar syrup. At this time, the outside air temperature must be at least 10 ° C. Otherwise, sucrose will not be degraded.

If the insect feeding process is done ahead of time, it can harm the insects. This is due to the fact that young bees fly out of the hive earlier. Taking part in the processing of sugar syrup, they get tired and die in a short time.

To prepare the sugar syrup, ingredients such as water and white sugar are used. It is important to observe their proportions: for 1 liter of water you need to take 1.5 kg of sugar.

Experienced beekeepers recommend using rainwater to prepare the syrup. This is due to the fact that water from a well or a tap contains a large amount of salts that are contraindicated for insects.

Bee syrup

In August, you need to feed the bees with syrup, which can be prepared according to several recipes. There are 2 main ways to prepare food for bees:

• Hot. The water is brought to boiling point, and then sugar is added to it. The liquid is thoroughly mixed. After the sugar crystals are completely dissolved, the container can be removed from the stove. Do not cook the syrup for too long. This will cause it to become thick, which will harm the bees.
• Cold. This method consists in adding sugar to cold water. It is important to completely dissolve it in the liquid, otherwise the syrup will quickly crystallize.

You cannot store ready-made sugar syrup for a long time. This can lead to the formation of flakes in it, and its consistency will become similar to jelly. It is possible that bacteria and pathogenic microorganisms can develop in such feed.

If there is honeydew honey in the hive, this can provoke diarrhea in the bees or the development of a disease such as nosematosis. To avoid such an unpleasant situation, it is recommended to add acidic additives to the syrup: apple cider vinegar, table vinegar, citric acid. Thanks to this, it is possible to increase not only the life span of insects, but also their productivity.

To enrich the syrup with useful substances, you can add cobalt chloride to it at the rate of 2 liters of liquid per 1 g of cobalt. Such food for bees normalizes metabolic processes in insects.

Cobalt chloride for bees

At night, bees can be given such food, preheating it to 45 ° C. You need to feed the bees daily.

Top dressing, which consists of syrup and an admixture of needle extract (1 liter of syrup per 1 kg of additive), received good reviews. The extract can be bought ready-made, or you can prepare it yourself. To do this, take 1 kg of spruce (pine) needles and fill them with 4 liters of water. Bring the solution to a boil and leave for 3 hours.

The use of such food for bees makes it possible to achieve the following results:

• raise the level of insect activity;
• increase the number of eggs in a clutch;
• increase the productivity of bees;
• strengthen the immune system.

What to feed from

The syrup is poured into special feeders. There are several types of feeders:

• External. For its manufacture, glass jars or polyethylene containers are used. They are installed upside down on a stand.
• Framework. It looks like a frame in which a hole is made for feeding syrup. Fits like a regular frame.
• Overframe. Placed on top of the frames in the hive so that it closes the passage to the hive. Bees are not allowed to leave the house while feeding.
• Ceiling. Presented as a box with internal partitions. Food is poured into its departments. This is the most popular type of feeder among beekeepers.

Bee feeder

You can purchase ready-made feeders, or you can make them yourself from scrap materials.

In order for the bees to successfully overwinter, they must receive a sufficient amount of food. In this case, the following criteria are taken into account:

• the size of the bee colony;
• climatic conditions;
• the length of the cold season.

To calculate the required amount of feed, you must first inspect the hive, assessing the amount of honey that is in it at the moment.

Bee hive

There are several ways to feed bees:

• For 5-6 days, the feeders are filled with several liters of syrup.
• Every day, the feeders are filled with syrup in a volume of 0.5-1 liters. In this case, the duration of feeding the bees increases.

Experts prefer the second option to stimulate bees. This is due to the fact that insects do not have the ability to process a large amount of syrup. This method ensures that the bees are ready for winter.

Now even a novice beekeeper will understand why to feed the bees. Everything is very clear and simple. The main thing is not to overdo it!