Whoop! Silver Maples Are Blooming

As I often do, I dreamt of bees last night. I dreamt of big, fat white larvae. Drone larvae. I dreamt this because it's official. Silver maples are blooming so the beekeeping year has begun!

#macromonday #ifttt

If you have overwintering colonies, then Presidents' Day weekend is the perfect time to find out what your bees need.

Phenology aside, here's a few "If This Then That" statements that guide me.

Primer: When to Feed Pollen Substitute?

Disclaimer: this post is a collection of a Notes to Self because feeding is a complicated issue and I can't remember anything unless it's written down.

In addition to carbohydrates from honey or sugar syrup, bees also need protein and minerals. Young bees need protein to strengthen their muscles, and also to produce brood food. Naturally, they get their protein from pollen. When it is in short supply, both the house bees and the brood they are raising may not develop to their full potential. In times of dearth, pollen substitute or supplement can help. Pollen Substitute is a pollenless combination of soy flour, brewer's yeast and milk powder. Pollen Supplement is just substitute plus real pollen.

Either substitute or supplement can be combined with honey or syrup to make it shapeable into a patty. The advantage of a patty over the dry powder is quickness of putting into the hive. Patties should be placed directly over the winter cluster. We don't have small hive beetles in Colorado, so the patties won't become breeding grounds for them. While easy and inexpensive to make on your own, I don't like having miscellaneous leftover ingredients hanging around for which I need to find both containers and storage space. Small house, remember?

1/3 of a pollen patty on top of sugar candy

Excerpt: Beekeeping for Dummies

Feed the colony pollen substitute, which helps strengthen your hive and stimulates egg laying in the queen. Pollen substitute is available in a powdered mix from your bee supplier. This feeding can cease when you see bees bringing in their own pollen. 

That's all there is in the book on pollen sub. I've scoured all my books, the Internet, back issues of ABJ and Bee Culture, every bee supply catalog I have and, IMO, the subject is not well-covered. Just look at the MegaBee web site, and you'll see what I mean. You'll leave with more questions than when you arrived. If someone can tell me the differences between MegaBee, MegaBee Winter Patties, MegaBee Hydrid (and the many other subs out there), please, I'd love to know.

I never write a post without a picture,
so here's one looking into the feeder rim on the Warré hive.
There's pollen sub (I'll let you know what kind in my next post),
a grease patty and chunks of fondant.

Here are my guesses.

• MegaBee is pollen substitute in powdered form. (No Honey-B-Healthy because this a dry product; all MegaBee patties contain HBH.) At 40% protein and only 4% carbs, this sub is for build-up any time but Winter.
• MegaBee Winter Patties are a low-protein/high carb formulation for adult bee maintenance. At ≠3% protein, it doesn't stimulate brood-rearing. This sub is good for emergency feeding throughout Winter and into early Spring.
• MegaBee Hybrid is the patty form of regular MegaBee pollen sub [i.e.: the powder mixed with sugar syrup (most likely HFCS) so it's a blend of protein and carbs]. I believe the protein is to stimulate brood production, the carbs are to feed the adult bees, and, as with all the patties, the Honey-B-Healthy is to boost colony health. I would suggest using this in early Spring and trying to time it so you have 2 or 3 of rounds of brood matured and ready for the first nectar flow.

Recipe: Fondant for Winter Feeding

This is a good workable amount for a 3-quart pot:
  4 lbs. granulated sugar (white)
  1 lb. water
  1 tsp. lemon juice or Apple Cider Vinegar (optional but the acid assists in keeping the sugar inverted)

Hopefully your hives aren't "light" and don't need to be fed, but if you had to feed heavy syrup in the Fall, then Winter feeding might be necessary as well. Syrup has moisture than can be a death sentence for the bees in Winter, so candy or fondant is a much wiser choice. A no-cook candy board is far easier to make but if you're inclined you might want to make fondant, which some say is easier for the bees to digest.

Certainly, you can buy fondant at Cake Crafts but it's got additives in it that can give bees dysentery. It's better to make your own. Making fondant involves inverting sugar, breaking the disaccharide sucrose into the monosaccharides fructose and glucose, and then controlling the molecular alignment of those simple sugars. Inverted sugar is supposedly more easily digested by the bees, and in the Winter you want to keep things easy for them. There are lots of recipes on the Internet for winter bee feed. Really old ones call for cream of tartar but I'd avoid that additive. Other than than, forget about the ingredients and the measurements; it's the method that matters most when making fondant. And don't  worry about fancy equipment either; all you need is a little patience and a watchful eye.

fondant