Making Invert Sugar Syrup

There are times when you may find it necessary to feed your bees some sugar syrup. Feeding syrup can be done for different reasons. You may need to feed syrup to administer fumigiln to help your bees combat nosema disease. You may want to continuously feed syrup to new package to help in the production of wax and to provide an easy source of food to help the colony get established. Some beekeepers feed in the early autumn to help a colony gain extra stores for overwintering. Some beekeepers will start feeding two or three brood cycles before the spring flow to help stimulate the queen into laying eggs. Pollinators need to feed their bees to help maintain strong populations of bees so they can fulfill the obligation of their contracts. These are just a few examples of why beekeepers feed sugar syrup to their colonies.

Different ratios of sugar syrup are fed depending on what you wish to accomplish.

A 1:2 mixture, one pound of sugar to two pints of water is used by some beekeepers as a stimulative feed to get the queen laying eggs.

Some beekeepers prefer to use a 1:1 mixture, one pound of sugar to one pint of water, for stimulative feeding. A 1:1 mixture more closely resembles nectar and stimulates the bees to build comb and provides food for the larvae.

A mixture of 2:1 , two pounds of sugar to one pint of water, is typically fed to administer medications and fed to help build winter stores.

I'm currently in the process of making 1:1 invert syrup for stimulative feeding. The reason I like to invert the sugar in the syrup is that it breaks down the sucrose into glucose and fructose, the two main components of honey. Since it closely resembles honey by being made up of the same two components it is more easily digested by the bees and larvae and can be more readily consumed. Opposed to regular sugar syrup, invert syrup is less likely to crystallize, it retains moisture longer when used in pollen patties, helps to prevent mold, and robbing is less prevalent when invert syrup is used for feeding. Invert syrup is easy to make by simply adding some cream of tarter or lemon juice to the sugar syrup.

To make some inverted syrup to get a 1:1 ratio I simply put eight pints of water into a large pot and bring to a boil.



I then slowly add eight pounds of granulated sugar to the water and stir the mixture to completely dissolve all of the sugar.



Once dissolved cream of tarter is added to the mixture. One teaspoon to one gallon of syrup is sufficient to invert the sugar in the syrup.





When using eight pints of water and eight pounds of sugar you need to add one and a half teaspoons of cream of tarter because you will end up with a gallon and a half of syrup.



When making your invert syrup it is important that you boil the mixture for twenty minutes to invert as much as the sucrose as possible. Be sure to stir the mixture a lot and don't let it sit or it will carmalize in the bottom of the pot. When done properly the invert syrup has a shelf life of up to six months so don't worry if you make extra because you have six months to give it to your bees.

For stimulative feeding my favorite way of feeding invert syrup to my bees is in a one gallon paint can. When placed over the cluster the bees can remain in contact with the feeder when it is too cold to break the cluster and can continue to eat from the can.



If you click on the picture above you can see that the can is close to eight inches tall. When placed on a couple 1/4" or 3/8" sticks on the top bars over the cluster the lid provides a large are for many bees to feed at. Also since the can is eight inches tall it will fit nicely inside of an empty deep hive body.

I like to use jars for feeding as well.



The quart and half gallon jars work well with boardman feeders. There is also an inside feeder that works well with quarts. Half gallon jars are too tall for an empty deep hive body the work well with two empty shallow supers. The gallon jars work well with two shallow supers.

Hopefully this info helps out those of you who have wondered what invert sugar syrup was and why it is more beneficial to you and your bees as opposed to regular sugar syrup.

Colony Extraction from May, 2007

I'm sure that if you are keeping bees that you would like to have more colonies, right? Of course you do. I don't think I've ever met a beekeeper who would turn down a free swarm if it was presented to them. I'm sure that if you are like me that you already have empty equipment sitting around begging you for bees. The easiest way to get bees without effecting your own colonies by making splits is to collect swarms. If you want to collect swarms you need to get your name out there now!!! Inform your local pest control businesses, real estate agents, landscapers, and tree trimmers that you would perform this service. The best thing is that there is no need to do it for free!!! Exterminators get paid for their services and all that I know will not poison bees. It is hard for a real estate agent to sell a house with a hive of bees under the eave. Landscapers are on a lot of different properties while they work and a busy hive isn't to hard to spot if it's around and is sometimes difficult to work around. Tree trimmers have a hard job to do if they are cutting down a tree that has a colony in or on it. They all will pay for your services or will recommend you to the property owner and they will pay to have their fears absolved by having you remove some bees. It is much easier to make a nuc or a split from one of your own colonies than it is to waste your gas and time running around trying to catch swarms that may have already left. You also don't want to cut out a colony with diseases or diseased brood for free when you don't want it anyway. This is the main reason you should be compensated for your efforts.

One of the big things about collecting swarms, removing bees, doing cutouts, or colony extractions is that you may inadvertently introduce a new pest or disease to your apiary. I collected a swarm while working near Carbo, VA a few years back and brought it home. The colony did great. I had no reason to suspect it had anything wrong with it. After I sent some samples to the Beltsville Bee Lab last Autumn I discovered this colony had tracheal mites. It had not infected my other colonies but the potential was there. Having a call about a swarm here in southern West Virginia is not common but having calls for doing colony extractions are.

Prior to doing the cutout you should asses the site and collect some samples to send to the Beltsville Bee Lab to have the sample diagnosed. After you get the results back you can decide what you need to do to the colony after you extract it. While you are cutting out the brood comb be sure to examine it closely for any brood disease. If you don't see any signs you should be alright. But if you see something out of the ordinary send it in for testing.

Here are some pictures from a colony extraction I did last May in the county east of here. The first picture is of me getting set up to look into the colony entrance.





After looking into the entrance and listening to the humm of the colony I was glad to discover the colony was in the wall on the front of the building and not on the side. This was a great relief as I did not wish to work off of the rickety extension ladder I had. Since the colony was in the front wall it made the work of removing it much easier as I could work off of the front porch on a step ladder.



After removing in the asphalt siding in a manner in which it could be reused I proceeded to cut the wall panels up the center of the stud so the could easily be nailed back into place. Pictured below is my first good look at the colony after I removed the planking from the wall.



After smoking the bees to move them to the comb deeper in the colony I started the slow tedious process of cutting the brood comb to fit some deep catch frames. I removed my gloves while doing this. Manual dexterity is of utmost importance when cutting out comb. I only got stung six times during the entire time and was all my fault because I put my hand or fingers on a bee. The bees were very docile which relieved my anxiety of possibly getting stuck like a pincushion.



Here I am coming down the ladder with a deep catch frame full of brood to put into a deep hive body.





Here's nice picture of a swarm catch frame partially filled with brood comb. You can see where I have removed about half of the comb from the wall at this point and there are still a bunch of bees in the wall.



At this point during the cutout I discovered the colony was making swarm preparations. This was evident by the presence of two swarm cells which were uncapped and still under construction. If I would have waited a week later I would have lost the mated feral queen and half of the bees in a swarm. The swarm cells were later used to make some nucs.





There was a lot of brood in the colony. If I remember correctly I made up eight frames of nothing but brood during the cutout.





This is a picture of the piece of comb I cut out that had the queen on it. The five gallon bucket in the background is where I put all the honey comb. It was nearly full when I finished.



Here's a closeup of the queen. It looks as if she was slimming down to fly off with the swarm within the next couple of weeks.



One thing that excited me about these bees was how quickly they started to remove damaged larva from the comb and hive after I put the comb into the deep hive body. This is indicative of hygienic behavior and was confirmed later when I tested them for hygienic behavior.



It took about five or six hours to remove all the comb from the wall and another two hours to remove and reinstall the sheeting and siding on the wall.



After a little more scraping of burr comb and removal of straggling bees I fixed the wall back to original condition. Too bad my photographer was in cleanup mode and forgot all about taking some additional pictures when I was done. I took all the bees I could and waited until after dark to make sure that I did. I feel sorry for the bees that got left behind but seeing how they were old enough to be foragers they didn't have much longer to live anyway.

I monitored the progress of this colony closely over the rest of the Summer and and it did not take them long to repair what I damaged. This picture was taken about two weeks later.



This next picture is what the upper deep looked like on the colony before winter. I was also fortunate to have this colony make a super of honey which I gave to a weaker colony for the winter.



This picture is of the winter cluster as of January 6, 2008. You can see that the colony only has three of the catch frames left in it because I used the rest for the split that I transferred the queen cells into. That split was later divided and the colonies that resulted are overwintering well so far. You can see in the picture that I used nine frame space frame rests in the hive body. This helps to hold the frames together until they are propolised and eliminates the need to use rubber bands or tie the ends of the top bars together. As of January 6th the bees had not moved into the upper deep and it is still full of winter stores.



If you are interested in doing any cutouts and would like some swarm catch frames feel free to contact me at my email address; ccohenour@hotmail.com

Also, if you are in southern or central West Virginia or near the state line around the area and have a colony you need removed from your property please feel free to contact me as well.

I have a few colony extractions scheduled for the later half of May. Hopefully I'll be able to take some pictures of those as well and post them here for you. If you are doing a cutout on your own just be sure to take plenty of beekeeping equipment, tools, take your time, and be careful. I hope you have enjoyed this. Happy Beekeeping!!!

Are Your Bees Alive, Do You Need to Feed Them? Part 1

It's getting into the new year now and I'm sure that many beekeepers would like to know if their bees are alive or if they need fed. If you have bees and want to know the only way to really find out is to check them out on a warm day when they are flying. It got up to about 60 degrees here today so I took advantage of the warm weather to check my colonies out.



Looking at the picture above you can see some flight activity. Just seeing flight activity around a hive does not mean that it is alive. The activity could be foragers from other colonies coming to rob the stores from a hive that no longer has a living colony of honeybees in it. There is an easy way to know if you still have a colony in a hive without opening it.



The picture above shows guard bees at the entrance. They will inspect nearly every bee that attempts to enter the hive to make sure it has the proper pheromone as the rest of the colony. Guard bees can recognize their nestmates from this pheromone and tell them apart from bees of other colonies. Pictured below you can see guard bees defending the entrance from invaders towards the right side of the landing board. These bees were most likely trying to enter the hive due to drift because the bees have not been able to fly for a few weeks here. It seems that drift is more common after the bees have been confined to a winter cluster for a week or longer. The bees need to reorient themselves to the hive location after a period of confinement.



So now that you've seen some guard bees defending the entrance the next thing you would probably like to know is if the colony has sufficient stores and how big the cluster is. The only way to do that is to visually inspect the colony. You could use a scale to weigh the hive but this is impractical for most of us and it is easy to evaluate a colony's stores when you are looking at the cluster size. So let's open a hive.
This is a picture looking down into the lower deep hive body of Cordovan Italians.



This is the lower deep hive body of feral bees from a wall extraction I did last May.



I did not take a picture of the upper hive bodies but they are full of stores. The main cluster has continued to remain in the lower brood chamber in the feral colony. The cluster of the Italian colony was dispersed between the two deep brood chambers. The feral colony has a slightly smaller overall cluster size and seem to be more frugal with their winter stores. I'm not even concerned about these two colonies or my other colonies from last winter having having enough stores for this winter.
Something else you need to consider is condensation in the hive during winter. An easy way to combat condensation is to notch your inner cover like this.



Not only does the notch allow for ventilation for the condensation but it also give the bees another entrance. I prefer to notch both sides of the inner cover because the space between the outer cover and inner cover needs to be ventilated as well. If your inner lid is not notched you can place a few twigs or pebbles near the front corners between the inner and outer covers. This will give you enough ventilation so that your colony will not have condensation build up.
My primary concern as far as winter stores is for the colonies I started as nucleus colonies last June and July. Most of the colonies have sufficient stores but I did find two colonies that I could feed and not have to worry about for awhile.
Pictured below is a colony of New Word Carniolans.



The queen was a virgin daughter of a breeder queen from Latshaw Apiaries. I received the queen near the third week of July. Once the queen had started laying there was a dearth of nectar here which usually happens in August. I had two of these queens and lost one of them most likely during her nuptial flight. I combined the two nucs I made for them near the end of August. Though I fed sugar syrup to the nuc it never really did take off good due to being late in the season. I gave the colony a shallow super of drawn comb at the beginning of the goldenrod flow but they used that nectar for backfilling the brood chamber. Though I'm going to begin stimulative feeding with syrup and pollen patties in a month from now I decided to use some granulated sugar to make sure that this little colony has food if they need it.
I placed an empty shallow super on top of the brood chamber and placed some newspaper on the top bars of the frames.



Then I poured about eight pounds of sugar on the newspaper.



I looked in the hive a little while ago and some of the bees are already taking to the sugar though they still have about thirty-five pounds of honey in the brood chamber.
The way I have mostly fed colonies in the past is slightly more labor intensive than just simply pouring sugar on some newspaper. First you need some drawn comb, some properly mixed sugar icing, and a colony that needs to be fed
I was lucky enough to have a colony that needs to be fed and some drawn comb. Now I just need to show you what to do with the icing. First you need to get a frame of drawn comb.



Then you need to put the icing in the comb.







Be sure when using this method you place the frames with the icing over the cluster so the bees can access it easily. It's not very wise to use syrup for winter feeding. The bees need to evaporate the water from the sugar and that is really hard for them to do during the colder months.
I'm sure you will be happy to know that I have not lost any of my hives this year. I inspected each colony today and seen nothing at all to be concerned about. Every colony had nice healthy looking clusters and I could see no signs of disease or parasite infestation. The only difference was that the colonies I made up as nucs last year had smaller clusters and I'm sure they will be in full build-up mode come spring. As long as I can stay ahead of their needs they all should do just fine this winter.
Since I've given you some basic points about winter feeding I'd like to talk about something else for a minute. I'm sure that some of you reading this need some new hive stands or need to sit some up for new colonies. I've used wooden stands and pallets but they never last very long. Migratory beekeepers need to use pallets because they make the job easier when loading and unloading hives and moving them around in the orchards. I've used masonry block but too much of the bottom stays in contact with the masonry and it will cause them to rot faster. My favorite thing to use so far are metal I-beams.



Pictured above are 12" I-beams. There is little contact between the wood and the metal so the bottom boards stay drier and last longer. I have a friend who has a scrap metal business so I usually have easy access to some I-beams when needed.



Pictured above are a couple more I-beams I recently acquired for hive stands. I need to get a few more for my plans for expansion this spring. I painted the one hive stand with silver colored Rustoleum protective enamel and they have looked great for the last few years.
I hope all this info helps you out with your beekeeping endeavors!!!

Repairing Hive Bodies

After a while of having an apiary almost every beekeeper is faced with the dilemma of repairing or replacing some of their woodenware. For me the most common piece of woodenware which needs to be replaced or restored are the hive bodies. The hive bodies which contain the brood and winter cluster are subject to all weather conditions every day of the year. Your honey supers usually only experience seasonal usage during which they are in warmer weather and not subject to being damp for extended periods of time through the winter like the hive bodies for the brood chamber are.

Most of the hive bodies that I use are deeps (9 5/8" tall). The deeps are much heavier when full of honey than my shallow supers are when they are full. The extra amount of pressure used to pry them apart with my hive tool also helps to damage them. After they have been in the weather for a few years the corners where you pry them apart degrade due to the weather so it becomes easier to damage them when prying them apart.

A few years ago I went to a hive body rotation schedule due to having older hive bodies which needed repaired or restored. During the winter months I will repair and restore some of the older hive bodies to rotate out with those currently in use. I like to switch them out in the spring when I start to routinely inspect my colonies. The ones which get rotated out will soon be restored or repaired with a fresh coat of primer and paint to be put back into rotation when needed. After I am finished with the rotation the last ones will usually sit around until January at which point I will start getting anxious and start the process again. The winter months are also an excellent time to buy all that new woodenware you need for the spring.
I am sure that some of you have seen hive bodies that look like this.

Sometimes when I have a hive body like this I will cut them down to a medium super (6 5/8" tall). That is the easiest thing to do. The only bad thing is that you either have to cut down some frames to fit it or just buy some new ones. You can see at the bottom left, or a top corner, of the hive body that it needs to be repaired there as well as on the bottom,
Over the hive body previously pictured you can see two deeps which were cut down to mediums. Notice the three different styles of cut in handles. These three hive bodies each came from different suppliers.



This next picture is of a hive body which I simply just cut some rotten spots out of. It's easiest to me if I cut from where the joints meet in the corners and I only try to cut a minimum of wood to remove the rot. It is important to keep your cut square so when you attach the new wood to the hive body it fits properly.



This picture is of the same hive body with the new wood in place. I prefer to use a bead of carpenter's glue between the new and old wood but it is not necessary.



The other end of the hive body had some rot too. Since it was near the center of the hive body I chose to use some exterior vinyl spackling by DAP. I have used bondo before but the DAP is easier to use as it requires no mixing and is easier to sand. The reason the paint looks so bad is because it was an oil oil based paint instead of latex paint which is water based. I'll discuss the paint in more detail a little later.



It's hard to see in this picture but there is a predrilled hole into which a 3" decking screw was used to fasten the new wood to the hive body. For thinner pieces of wood used to replace rot I like to use 16d or galvanized spiral nail instead of the countersunk screws. I also favor using electrical 3/4" metal staples for securing the bottoms together to help hold them flush when screwing or stapling. After removing the paint I discovered another rotten spot. You can see where I used a chisel to remove the rot and where the DAP was used about half way down the right side of the hive body.



The next picture is of a hive body with one of the top ends repaired. There was not much damage on the top of this deep hive body but I felt the bottom was in such disrepair that it needed to be cut down to a medium super. The end had been cracked off from using it as a fulcrum to pry propolised frames from the hive body over the years. The corners were rotted and damaged as well from all the prying. Since these pieces of wood that were used are small so are the nails. A good bead of glue was applied before nailing and the glue will hold better than the nails would otherwise.



I have not painted any of the hive bodies that I have repaired because I am making and ordering more woodenware and wish to paint everything at the same time. When I paint hive bodies I prefer to use two coats of primer. My primer of choice is Kilz2 latex primer. It is a latex sealer, primer, and a stainblocker. It is also water based so cleanup only requires soap and water. It dries quickly and can be recoated in about an hour. The primer helps the paint last longer as well as it gives the paint a prepared surface suitable for painting. If you don't use primer your paint will chip off the unprepared wood in a year or two and your wood will not be properly protected from the elements.

For the paint I prefer latex. The color is not as important as what kind of paint you use. Be sure to use a water based latex exterior paint. When choosing your paint try to choose some that is mildew resistant and with a good warranty. Some people my disagree and think that oil based paint is better. However I do not share these views. Remember the green hive body above with the chipped paint? Would you like to know why it was like that? Wood is a permeable substance. This means that the wood breathes or will allow moisture to pass through it. The oil based paint creates a barrier that will not allow the wood to breath. When a strong colony of bees is curing nectar into into honey the permeable quality of is a benefit and this is one of the reasons I don't like styrofoam hives. When the moisture from the nectar tries to escape through the wood it will be trapped in behind the oil based paint. (I doubt if whiskey would be as good as it is if the charred barrels that it ages it in were painted with an oil based paint. A big part of aging whiskey in a charred barrel is that the wood breathes and allows the flavor to build during the aging process.) After a while the wood will start rotting behind the paint because it is coming from the inside. This is why I now only use latex paint because it is permeable and allows the wood to breath properly. When restoring hive bodies which have been painted with an oil based paint I use a heat gun to help strip as much of the old paint off as I can. It blisters the paint for easy scraping and removal and is much faster than sanding because the oil based paint is pretty tough stuff. If the hive bodies are properly primed and sealed before painting usually all I have to do is a little sanding just to scratch the paint up some and recoat with a fresh paint when I restore them.

Before painting there is another step that I include in my hive body rotation. Before priming and painting I will scrape the inside of the hive body. Then the inside is lightly scorched with a propane torch. After this it is then sanded until the scorching is barely visible. Though I have never had any AFB or nosema in any of my colonies for the ten years I've been keeping bees I do this as an extra precaution to help guard against spreading any possible disease that could be hiding in the propolis, burr comb, or on the wood.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and hopefully learned something to help you become a better beekeeper. When I am ready to get everything painted I'll be sure to take some pictures and to share the experience with you. Thanks for reading.

Registering Your Apiary and Submitting Samples for Testing

It is important that if you have any colonies of honeybees that you register them with your state's Department of Agriculture. Here in West Virginia sometimes the state will appropriate funds to help beekeepers to maintain the health of their colonies. It also gives you the opportunity to have your colonies inspected by a bee inspector. If you wish to sale any colonies or wish to move your colonies across state lines you must have each colony inspected and they must be accompanied be a certificate of inspection. In some states if you experience bear damage to your colonies the state will not reimburse you the cost of the damage if your colonies are not registered.
This year the West Virginia Dept of Ag is giving beekeepers in the state one gallon of corn syrup and one treatment of Api Life Var for each colony registered with the state. In the past the state has assisted beekeepers with mite treatments as I mentioned in my previous post.
Here is what a Certificate of Apiary Registration in WV looks like.



I no longer use chemical treatments in my hives but I still monitor for mite levels and submit samples for testing of tracheal mites and nosema disease. Though my colonies appeared healthy and robust and with low mite counts, I submitted some samples to the Beltsville Bee Lab for analysis by a trained technician. The results I received verified that my colonies have low mite counts. I was more interested in seeing if any of my colonies had nosema or tracheal mites. I got a clean bill of health for the nosema however one of my overwintered colonies that I acquired as a swarm in southwestern VA had tracheal mites. The level of infestation was at 16%. An infestation level of %30 can cause a colony to collapse during the winter months. Hopefully this colony will make it through the winter. In the future when doing cutouts I plan on collecting and submitting samples from the colony before I even begin the extraction process. I definitely do not want to bring any nosema or tracheal mite infested honeybees into my apiary and am considering not collecting swarms from other people as well.
To me it was important to submit the samples. I had five colonies left after the spring bear attack and did a wall extraction of a colony. I made some nucs from these colonies to increase my numbers. I turned the six colonies into twenty. I sold three colonies and gave my daughter a nuc. The samples I sent were from my overwintered colonies, the feral colony I got from the cutout, and from a few of the nucs which had the feral queens daughters in them. I was satisfied with the results. I used the feral queens daughters in all the nucs I made and the nuc I made from the hive that tested positive for tracheal mites was not infested with the parasite. This is good news because it now seems that the offspring of the feral queens daughter have a resistance to tracheal mites. I will submit some more samples this March to see how the faired over the winter.
Submitting samples is easy and it is free. The only it costs is the price of postage, a few ziplock baggies, some rubbing alcohol, and some time. Anyone who is interested in submitting samples to the Beltsville Bee Lab just click on the link to the left of the page and follow the links on the USDA website.
This is what a Bee Disease Diagnosis sheet looks like.



I am doing my best to not chemically treat my colonies for parasites or disease. I have not treated for anything for four years after I started monitoring mite levels. I also do not believe in prophylactic treatments. Don't treat your bees just because everyone else does. Monitor your mite levels and send samples for analysis to make sure you need to treat. To me it is a waste of your time and money to treat for tracheal mites or nosema if you do not have it. The only way you will now is if you learn to examine your bees yourself with a microscope or to send samples to a laboratory. There is some research that shows that chemical treatments for varroa can have ill effects on your bees. Infertile drones, queens with low body weight, and queens which are superseded often are a few of the ill effects that chemically contaminated brood comb can have on your colony. I hope this helps those of you who are treating prophylactically, are not registering your apiary, or are not submitting samples for disease diagnosis.