The syrup solution
I remember the first time I made sugar syrup. It was just after I purchased a new hive and was told to feed them 1:1 syrup. This seemed horribly confusing at the time. Books and beekeepers were brimming with sage advice such as “use weight, not volume” or “use volume, not weight.” Then there was “use only cold water” and of course “only use hot water.” Some said, “add vinegar” and some said, “add nothing.” Some said, “always boil” and some said “never.” If you did anything contrary to these mystifying instructions, you would kill every bee within a five-mile radius. Of course.
In truth, all these rules are made by beekeepers—not by bees, not by nature, not by divine instruction. Once again, let’s try applying logic to the situation.
The purpose of syrup it to supplement the bee diet with a high-energy food source when they have little nectar or honey available to them. It is far better for bees to eat honey, but there are times when there isn’t enough honey for the number of hungry mouths. One-to-one syrup is meant to simulate nectar, so it is watery like nectar.
But nectar doesn’t contain a fixed amount of sugar; every species of plant has nectar with a different sugar-to-water ratio. Even the very same flower may have a different sugar-to-water ratio in the morning than in the afternoon, or on a rainy day versus a dry day, or on a hot day versus a cold day. The ratio of sugar to water is infinitely variable and I suspect not a single, solitary plant has an exact ratio of 1:1.
The nectar collected at any one time may be 1.36 to 1 . . . 1 to 1.27 . . . or anything else. The bees don’t care. They collect it. They know what to do with it. So why are we in the kitchen fiddling with scales or leveling off our measuring cups with decimal point precision?
The point is that the 1-to-1 measurement is an approximation. It is a convenient way for us to come close to what we want, but it is not magic. So you put in a little too much sugar? No problem. Not quite enough? Don’t worry. Honestly, it makes no difference. Your bees will not stick little instruments in the feeder to test the specific gravity, trust me. They will simply be overjoyed to have something to eat.
Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite
Comments
GREAT POINT!!!!! I’ve never worried with it much. Always used my 1 Cup dry to 1 cup liquid, and sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. Also slush. Also no water. You are right – they don’t care.
Great to hear as we have not had to provide this supplement yet and I agree that any articles on the subject are confusing so I appreciate your advice. Oh, I assume you would boil it, to ensure the sugar dissolves properly.
Merryn,
One-to-one syrup doesn’t require boiling. I just use hot tap water. Two-to-one is harder to dissolve, so I usually boil the water, turn it off, and then stir in the sugar.
This makes good sense.
Does anyone know how much is the most sugar you can dissolve in water without having it granulate when it cools? Would that be too much sugar for bees?
Suz, I don’t know an exact number. But hard candy (like a lollipop) has virtually no water in it and it is not granulated. To get a lot of sugar to dissolve in a little water you need to add lots of heat and you have to keep from seeding the mixture if you don’t want crystals.
But as far as the bees are concerned, they don’t need any water in their sugar. This is why you can feed them hard candy or granulated sugar with no problem. They will add water to it to get it to dissolve, or they will wait for moisture to condense on the sugar and then eat it.
Rusty, thanks again for commonsensical info. People whose advice is cut and dried, are usually trying to inflate their own importance, instead of helping us, the listeners. The test of which it is should be: Is this intimidating or empowering? Nan
Thanks, I want to be able to make the most sugary syrup to put in an entrance feeder that won’t granulate so that it still goes through the holes. Is this idea faulty?
Suz,
It won’t hurt anything, but generally thin syrup is recommended for spring feeding because it more closely resembles nectar and therefore stimulates spring brood development. I’m not sure why you want the syrup to be so thick.
Just curious, in late fall wouldn’t you want to give them the least water possible?
Suz,
Yes, which is why you give 2:1 syrup in the fall, instead of 1:1. As you get closer to winter and temperatures drop even lower, you switch to hard candy or fondant.