Measured Anecdotal Science
Deciding to feed bees requires quite a bit of forethought. This is best to do BEFORE the bees are hungry. How are you going to feed; what are you going to feed; when are you going to feed? Luckily I had some, but not all, of this figured out. The other part of the equation is how do you know if feeding worked.
Foremost, I am a beekeeper, but I am also a scientist. This is a very difficult balance because In order to answer the question “did feeding work” I must first define what “it worked” is. Then, I need to have unfed controls and measure some parameters of unfed colonies against fed colonies and determine if the treatment (feeding) resulted in “it worked” or not.
As a beekeeper, this is excruciating. I rely on every one of these colonies for an income, plus I need these colonies to thrive for future research already funded. Collecting and analysing data is time consuming (expensive) and difficult. Consequently, this story will not be a true scientific experiment, but rather a Measured Anecdotal Scientific process where I am making some assumptions based on my beekeeping experience and gathering the bare minimum essential data based on my scientific background in order to determine if feeding “worked”
Defining perimeters of this non-experiment
Telling the bees that their feeder is full. GO check it out!
I am working on the assumption that if I did not feed, the colonies would die over winter. So “it worked” will be finally measured in the spring as colony survival. However, my experience overwintering 5 frame nucs in Victoria tells me that if colonies enter winter with 4.5 frames of bees, 2 frames of brood, at least 1.5 frames of honey with pollen, they have a very good chance.
With this information, I can change my definition of “it worked” to a colony being set up well for winter by the end of April.
As it is nearly the middle of March I can do some bee maths to anecdotally measure progress toward “it worked”: how many frames of bees and brood does this colony have now, what does the brood pattern look like, and is the colony infected by chalkbrood. I can extrapolate these numbers to say “if the colony stayed on this trajectory, would it be ready for winter”. For example, a colony sitting on 2.5 frames of bees and 1 frame of brood with a spotty brood pattern in March would definitely not make it through winter. A colony with 4 frames of bees and three frames of brood with good resources and good resource prospects for the next month would probably survive until spring in central Victoria.
To keep things simple, frames of bees (the number of frames completely covered by bees) are measured in half units. Frames of brood usually follows frames of bees by 1 less, for example, if a colony has 4 frames of bees, they usually have 3 frames with brood on it. The brood pattern is scaled at a 0-3 range with 0 being none, 1 being really spotty and 3 being really solid. Chalkbrood is also measured on a 0-3 scale with 0 being none, 1 being a few cells, and 3 being completely disgusting.
Now that we have defined our parameters, we can start the non-experiment.
The right gear and know-how
As I said at the beginning, if you plan to feed bees, a little forethought goes a long way. I am halfway prepared to feed bees. I know what to feed and how to feed, and I even have some systems set up to do this. It is just actioning these systems that takes a bit of time and experience.
I am feeding both heavy sugar syrup and protein supplement (free flight feeding as well as in-hive feeding). I have also added some magic Bee Boost to the sugar syrup to boost the nutritional profile beyond just carbohydrates. In some future posts, I will let you know about some interesting work with blue-green algae stay tuned. For now, I will walk you though my process of feeding hungry nucs with the goal of building up their populations to get ready for winter.
Sugar syrup
I have said that my nucs are 5 framers- this is true, but I keep a frame feeder in all year around so actually I have 4 frame nucs. I will discuss the design of these nucs in a later post, but for now, just know that I have a frame feeder in and now there is some chicken wire in each feeder to act as a bee ladder.
I am feeding heavy syrup that I make in my clean wax melter by adding 50 kgs sugar to about 30 litres water. I store this syrup in 20 litre plastic cubes that I get from People in Plastic in Melbourne. Heavy syrup will not ferment and can be stored for a long time. HINT: If you want to feed light syrup, mix it as you feed it because the life span is so short. Light syrup WILL ferment quickly depending on how clean your container is and external temperature.
Protein supplement
For this non experiment I will be free flight feeding as well as in-hive feeding. To free flight feed, I simply toss some Bee Build in a container and the bees are hungry enough to find it. They collect it and bring it back to the hive as pollen. Bee Build is Australian made and owned, developed over the course of a decade to make sure everything about it is just right. The ingredients are ground to less than 100 microns and oil is added to make sure the bees can collect it. The nutrient composition is similar to the highest quality pollen, and we strive to source Australian organic ingredients. This stuff is really good.
Increasing the surface prevents the “frenzy” of bees fighting for resources.
I will also be feeding pollen patties in the hive. I have been working over the past two years to make a pollen patty that is easy for beekeepers to use and the bees readily eat. After A LOT of trialling, I think I have finally gotten it right. This mix uses Bee Build as a base, and has some extra special Ingrediants to keep it from drying out in the hive and make it extra attractive to nurse bees. Since developing this new formula, I haven’t met a hive that hasn’t gobbled it up. Mission accomplished!
Concluding thoughts
Please note, that I know this is poor science. By doing all of these things, I cannot say anything conclusively about any of them individually. However, I don’t really care. My end goal is to do anything I can to get the bees healthy enough to make it through winter.
These nucs have new queens reared from hygienic breeding stock and destined to contribute to our breeding program next season. Loosing these nucs wouldn’t just be a loss of bees, but it would be a major setback in our breeding program. I realise this situation isn’t ideal, but I am going to do the best I can with what I have on-hand and hopefully learn/teach along the way.