Q. Sugar water vs pollen patties for winter feeding. What are the pros and cons on both? – Karl from Western NC
A. When I first read this question, my reaction was, well, neither of these really are winter food. But then the reader’s address caught my eye: Western NC.
This puts another slant on the question. That’s because one of the truest things about beekeeping is that all beekeeping is local. And it follows, then, that the best beekeeping advice is also (or ought to be) locally-oriented. It’s not just that the reader is in North Carolina and Betterbee is in upstate New York, which is an obvious difference. It matters, perhaps even more, that the question comes from western North Carolina, not down on the coast.
Fortunately, while the timing of things may vary significantly by location, the principles are usually the same. In other words, the bees’ needs are the same; it just happens on a different page of the calendar.
With that said, let’s look first at feeding syrup. Liquid sugar (whether home-made sugar water, or a commercial product such as Pro-Sweet) is traditionally fed during both the spring and fall seasons.
In the spring, syrup is used to fuel package bees to allow them to begin drawing comb (an enormously calorie-demanding task) as soon as possible. After all, if bees are hived on bare foundation, they must draw out the comb before the queen can begin to lay the eggs. It’s a race to get the new brood matured before the original bees from the package reach the natural ends of their short lives. Using syrup provides a fast, and most importantly, constant supply of calories, that jump starts the comb-drawing and keeps it going, without regard to the inconsistencies of spring weather which might interrupt foraging.
In the fall, on the other hand, syrup is not fed to encourage the bees to make more combs, but instead to fill the ones they already have with enough stores to see them through the winter.
In both seasons, though, air temperature is an important consideration. That’s because when the outside air temps are below 50 degrees F (at night, or on chilly days) the syrup will cool off and may not re-warm enough to be attractive to the bees. And indeed, if it gets too cool, the bees may become chilled trying to take it and not be able rewarm themselves. That’s why at both the earliest start of spring and the tail end of fall feeding, syrup becomes a tricky and, perhaps, ineffective way to deliver calories.
During the winter period in between these two syrup-feeding windows, the best way to provide nutrition (aside from an ample supply of honey) is some form of solid sugar. That can be loose granulated sugar (the so-called “Mountain Camp” method), fondant (home-made or purchased), home-made sugar bricks, or winter patty. Having sugar in solid form allows the bees to eat it without becoming chilled. It preserves the freshness of the product (the 1:1 syrup typically fed in the spring can ferment quickly), and it provides the needed calories without adding unwanted extra moisture to the hive.
Beekeepers are sometimes a little fuzzy about the difference between winter patty and pollen patty supplement, which is the other part of your question. They both look superficially the same, but they are not interchangeable.
Winter patty is intended to provide only calories, with scarcely any protein. That’s because wintering bees, without any brood to feed, primarily need just carbohydrates for good nutrition. Any excess of fat or proteins can contribute to dysentery when bees can’t regularly fly out to poop. Pollen patty or a pollen substitute, such as Megabee, are very different. These products have a much higher level of protein because they’re intended to stimulate brood raising. Larval worker bees must eat a much richer diet than adult workers in order to fuel their amazing metamorphosis from a simple grub-like body into a fully developed bee. And all this nutrition must come while the bees are still in the larval stage, because once a pupa is enclosed in its cocoon (when in the capped brood stage) no additional feeding is possible. Fats and proteins – which come from pollen, or pollen substitutes, are what fuel the cellular changes that enable this complete physical transformation to happen. Nurse bees, when tending to open brood, must have access to these essential fats and proteins in order to manufacture brood food for the larvae. In the absence of enough pollen, nurse bees are able to “mine” some of these nutrients from their own bodies to feed the brood, but at the cost of weakening themselves and shortening their lives.
Providing extra rations of pollen prompts the bees to begin a higher level of brood raising. But prematurely stimulating brood can create problems if the resulting number of bees – which must be fed and kept warm – gets out of synch with the progression from forage-less winter conditions into spring when new supplies of nectar and pollen are available. Early stimulation before there is useful work for the additional adult bees to do to earn their keep, can waste resources and lead to problems, including late season starvation. For this reason, the “standard” timing to begin supplemental pollen feeding is about 6 weeks before you want a peak population, whether that is for making early splits, or to work on a honey flow. For additional information about feeding pollen supplements, click here.
Two things that are true for all forms of winter or supplemental spring feeding: once you start, don’t do it in a stop and go manner. And don’t call it off at the first sign of spring. Keep on replenishing the supplemental food until the bees are completely self-sufficient again from only natural sources. Typically, this means until dandelions are in bloom, but occasionally in unusually cold and miserable spring seasons, that can mean continuing even longer.
Once you understand the differences and best uses of the various supplemental foods and you know your own location, you can decide for yourself what to use, and when to start. Up here in New York, we never offer liquid food during the winter simply because it would be too cold for the bees to take it. But “winter” in, say, coastal North Carolina might qualify as a fine spring day up here and syrup feeding might be appropriate. And while we might wait until late March or early April to begin pollen supplements, that could be too late, even as close as Philadelphia.
