Two Recipes for Thin Syrup (without and with refined sugar)

There are tons of recipes for beekeeping on the web and I don't mean to reinvent the wheel; I'm just trying to use up stuff I have around the house. Both recipes below make 1:1 syrup but have different proposed uses.

RECIPE 1: syrup without refined sugar

"NECTAR" to ENCOURAGE COMB BUILDING

Stir together in a quart-size Mason jar:
1 part honey (10 oz.)
2 parts water (20 oz.)
If your honey is crystallized, use hot water to fully dissolve it. If your honey is really dry, feel free to use up to 3 parts water. The 1:3 ratio very closely simulates natural nectar but if the bees don't take it down quickly, it is more apt to mold. Adding a few drops of anise essential oil may convince your bees to eat. 

RECIPE 2: made with refined sugar

IPM BROOD-REARING STIMULANT

Heat together to make a light syrup:
2 c. water
2 c. granulated white sugar

Stir together then add to the no-longer hot but still warm syrup:
1/16 t. liquid lecithin (don't bother trying granular lecithin, it won't work)
16-30 drops spearmint oil
12-20 drops lemongrass oil
Use the lesser amount of oil to initiate Spring buildup or to stimulate brood reading, especially of newly installed swarms/packages/nucs. Use the greater amount to improve colony health against disease and mite infestation.

Makes 1 quart of 1:1 syrup.

ON FRUCTOSE: This recipe scales up. When making a large batch, replacing some white sugar with fructose can help prevent crystallization.

ON ESSENTIAL OILS: They will emulsify in warm syrup better than cold. Too hot will volatilize the EOs. Brood with these particular essential oils in their bodies are supposedly less palatable to the Varroa mite, so including them is said to inoculate the next generation of bees against them. Aside from purported mite control, a benefit to using any essential oil is that they are natural preservatives. Note that the lowered pH inhibits – not prevents – fermentation of the syrup. Thin syrup just doesn't have high enough a sugar concentration to prevent fermentation.

WHY 1:1:
1:1 or light syrup is easy to slurp up for immediate use by the bees. Heavy syrup, 2 parts sugar to 1 par water (or 2:1) is intended for them to store. By giving them a drier syrup in the fall, we save them the work to fanning off the water in preparation for winter.

HOW TO USE:
When: Spring through Summer, anytime a colony is light and there is not a honey flow. Thin nectar molds readily in warm weather. Make small batches, or make a big one and store extra jars in the fridge.

How Long: When feeding bees, the usual recommendation is to feed until a) they stop taking it or b) you see them capping stores. These actions indicate that natural resources are available.

NOTES:
• If you need to feed carbohydrate (syrup) it is probably a good idea to feed protein (pollen).
• For comb building to occur, in addition to a nectar flow you'll need a population of young bees to eat it, and they'll need warmth to work the wax they produce. In other words, don't expect to see building in early spring or late fall no matter how much you feed.
• Thin syrup may be interpreted as a nectar flow and may stimulate brood rearing. Don't take it away from your bees too early or they could have lots of brood to feed and, without a natural flow, those bees will go hungry. Don't leave the feeder in the hive too long, though. You don't want them storing syrup. If you're not opposed to it, food coloring in the syrup can help you see if the bees are storing it.

Feeder Equipment: a hivetop feeder enables a Warré colony to take the syrup quickly. For a TBH, use a Boardman feeder inside the hive.

MORE INTERESTING READING: Feeding Bees Sugar Syrup, Feeding Bees Nectar Subsitutes

Do you see them?

Click on the image to see the reveal...

After seeing 3 mites in one peak through the window, we decided it was time to treat for Varroa. A little late, but what the heck. There's not much going on in the Backyard, and it'll be a good exercise. Given the chance, the Varroa population will overtake the colony as the honeybee population drops.

Our hive has a solid bottom board, so we can't rely on a simple grease patty to promote dropoff. Any mites that fall off the bees can simply climb back on a passerby. We have to use a miticide to actually kill the mites. (We finally do have sumac berries, but still no smoker.) Scaling down the recipe recommended by Bees for Development, Spice the Mite with Nutmeg, we made a tracking strip and inserted it into the hive where the bees would be forced to walk over it. In theory, they pick up some of the grease and track it all over the place as they walk over the combs and their sisters. The mites loose their grip, and the essential oil kills them within hours.

Nutmeg EO runs over $11 for a .5 oz. bottle at the local health food store, so we used the ancient tea tree oil in our medicine cabinet. Our weather is far from Grenadian, so we left the tracking strip in twice the recommended time. When we pulled it out, there were only 4 mites on it. That's a very low count, so either the miticide didn't work or the colony is well below the "economic threshhold" (generally considered 50 in a 24hr sticky board test). We're hoping it's the former but, in case it's the latter, we took one more step.

The next day, an unseasonably warm 73°F, we placed a tracking strip on the landing board and left it there until the sun set. When the wax hardened, the tracking strip was rendered useless. There was, however, 1 dead mite; not bad for 4 hours. The stuff works! Unfortunately there was a dead drone, too, stuck wingside down in the melted/hardened miticide.

We should have started treating earlier, say in September or even October, so the tracking mix wouldn't harden and lose it's effectiveness. Our highs are only in the 50s now, but better late than never, we hope. We'll continue to monitor and, on warm days, treat again.

Buttercream Icing (or Recipe for Grease Patties)

While we've only seen two mites, the reason we're concerned about them is that while the lone queen bee slows down egg-laying in the Fall, the many mite foundresses keep on reproducing. So as the bee population dwindles and the mite count increases, the mite-per-bee ratio could become too high for the colony to withstand. Especially a small one like ours.

Bees don't fly if it's much under 50°F, so in preparation for a cold weekend forecast, we replenished their syrup and gave them a Grease Patty. (Actually, I formed it into a quenelle the traditional way, using two spoons to achieve a very nice three-sided football shape.) Theoretically, the bees will walk all over it, and pick up grease as they try to get the sugar. The grease makes them slippery and the mites fall off, or the bees pick the mites off as they groom each other. Unfortunately, it doesn't end there for the mite.

Many beekeepers use a Screened Bottom Board, but our hive has a solid bottom. If we had a SBB, the mites would fall through the screen and that would be that. The mites would soon die without its host. With a solid bottom, if a bee walks by a loose mite, it can pick up a hitch hiker. We need to actually kill the mites, so we modified the grease patty recipe.

Mostly sugar with shortening, the basic recipe for grease patties is almost identical to Wilton's Buttercream Icing. Ours, though, has tea tree oil instead of vanilla, making it a miticide. Here is our recipe, in volume so it's easy for those of you that don't own a kitchen scale, and scaled down to a wallet-friendly size.

Combine and shape into a "slider":
3 tablespoons sugar (OR 2 T sugar + 1 T granulated fructose*)
1 tablespoon shortening
a drizzle of honey (a teaspoon-sized chunk of comb honey)
a pinch of mineral salt, crushed to a fine powder**
3 drops wintergeen or tea tree oil***

* Fructose's hydroscopic properties can help keep the patty from drying out.

** such as Real brand
*** Every Chinese person has White Flower Oil in their house, and I bet it works better.

In the future, we might make a larger batch so that we can include some anise oil, too. Our bees barely touched the Grease Patty and the anise, a bee favorite, would stimulate their appetite. The mixture freezes well, which is handy for beekeepers who keep grease patties in their hives year-round. Even without any essential oil, they are reportedly effective in combatting Tracheal Mites. But we're hoping to not keep anything in the hive, especially during the busy season, except bees.

Recipe: Thick Syrup for Fall Feeding (no refined sugar)

Stir together in a quart-sized mason jar:
3 parts honey (24 oz.)
1/2-1 part water (4-8 oz.)
15 drops spearmint essential oil
5-10 drops lemongrass essential oil

When Fall feeding, colonies should be fed in a way that encourages the bees to take a lot of thick syrup in a short period of time, which "fattens" the bees in preparation for Winter.

You might wonder, as I did, what "a way that encourages the bees" is. It's not like you can stand there shaking a stick, commanding the bees, "Take this thick syrup. Quick!"* Well, there's no teacher like experience, and so a few dead bees later we can tell you what not to do.

Two Smoker Recipes

Smokeless Smoke

Pour 1 1/2 oz. apple cider vinegar into a 1L. spray bottle.
Add water to make 1 litre.

Do not add sugar to the water unless you are prepared to have sticky gloves, a sticky hive tool, a sticky hive, a sticky veil, ...

Supposedly Varroa-killing Smoker Fuel

Any combination of sumac bobs, juniper and/or chaparral leaves.

HOW TO USE: Create a small gap at the back of the hive. Gently puff cool smoke through the lower entrance until it starts coming out the top. Close up the hive for one minute, then let the bees out.

WHEN TO USE: August 15? IPM smoking is more effective in the Fall when there is little brood. Smoke will not penetrate cell cappings so only affects phoretic mites.

NOTE: A heavy smoking can mar comb honey with specks of soot, so harvest those prize-winning combs first.