As with most day-to-day beekeeping decisions, we must first ask ourselves: “Why?” Why do my bees need to be fed? If there are frames that still need comb built on them, we may be feeding to promote wax production. If the white clover is spent, but the goldenrod has not yet bloomed, then we may be feeding so our bees don’t need to rely too much on their stored honey for survival. Feeding could also be necessary because the beekeeper has extracted all of the honey from the hive, and the bees are now left without any food at all! Sometimes we feed protein supplements to help their bees raise brood when there is no natural pollen around for them to eat.
Let’s address the biggest feeding myth right away.
MYTH: Feeding equals failure.
Bees respond to the availability of natural food to fuel their growth. Natural pollen and nectar also signal to the bees where they are in the season, and whether they should be raising more brood, or less brood. Some beekeepers “mislead” their bees about natural conditions outside the hive, by giving them supplemental sugar syrup and supplemental protein to fuel brood growth even though nature isn’t supplying very much food at that time. This means that when the spring nectar flow starts, these supplemented colonies may be booming with foragers eager to get to work, and can help increase the amount of wax and honey the bees can make.
On the other hand, a natural beekeeper is usually more hesitant to get in between the bees and the signals they’re getting from the environment. Some natural beekeepers minimize feeding of their bees, and are happy with the results. But most still feed their bees, to reduce the nutritional stress the bees experience over the course of the year. Just because you are feeding your bees, that doesn’t mean you’ve failed as a beekeeper - even as a natural beekeeper.
As a beekeeper we are responsible for the health and survival of our bees. Sometimes Mother Nature is cruel to our winged friends. Spring, summer, or autumn pollen or nectar flows that usually happen sometimes fail, and the bees can find themselves in trouble. At some point in most regions, dearth happens. If bees have used the last of their stored food to start raising brood, but then nature fails to supply more food, the bees may be left with no choice but to cannibalize some brood to feed the remains to other brood. Not a pretty picture, even if it is “natural”! At that point, even a nature-oriented beekeeper usually helps their bees along, by supplementing their food supplies.
But how much honey should I harvest from my bees?
The most natural honey bee feed is their own honey, in their own frames, but it can be difficult to calculate how much honey to leave each colony. If too much honey is left, you’ll stunt your honey harvest for the year, and the bees will have too much honey the following spring. Meanwhile, over-harvesting can put the bees at risk of starving. Even if you love to play the odds, this lost bet can result in a catastrophe for your bees, so it’s best for every beekeeper to have a nutritional backup plan just in case.
The best, safest alternative to honey is pure cane or beet sugar. Use only granulated, refined, cane or beet sugar when making syrup for bees; never powdered sugar, brown sugar, or other “more natural” sugars that may contain indigestible particles. Although adding heat makes heavy syrup mix easily, make sure not to cook the syrup, and let it cool before you feed it to your bees. Open feeding of syrup is legal in some states, and illegal in others. If you try it, make sure the feed is a substantial distance from the apiary to prevent a robbing frenzy.
A much better option is feeding bees using dedicated feeders for each hive. If you don’t know what feeder to use, this video featuring EAS Master Beekeeper Anne Frey is a great tour of the different options.
Here are some other myths that cause trouble for beekeepers who are looking for natural ways to take care of their bees:
MYTH: Grocery store honey is safe to feed my bees.
It’s tempting to think that honey is a more natural food for your bees than sugar syrup, but honey can carry the long-lived spores of the bacteria that cause American foulbrood. These spores aren’t dangerous for humans, but they could spread if the honey is fed to honey bees again. Bees in your apiary should never be fed honey made by colonies in someone else's apiary because you can’t know if the other apiary is free of disease. However, feeding frames of honey from one of your hives to another of your hives is unlikely to cause problems, as long as your honey-donor hives are not showing signs of foulbrood.
MYTH: Less refined sugar is better for bees, so I’ll feed mine raw sugar/turbinado sugar/maple syrup.
Raw or partially unrefined sugars and maple syrup all contain higher levels of “ash” - minerals and substances other than sugar. Ash is bad for bee guts (and overall digestion), and can lead to dysentery. These yummy sweet supplements are safe for human consumption, but leave it off the bees’ plates. Meanwhile, completely refined granulated sugar mixed into pure water to produce sugar syrup is surprisingly similar to the flower nectar that bees drink naturally.
Can you feed honey bees bananas?
MYTH: Bananas and other sugary fruit are a great alternative to bee feed.
Whether labeled as organic or not, fruit is not the best nutrition supplement for your colonies. Fruit does contain sugars, but it’s not always clear if the bees are actually ingesting the pulp. Honey bees will pick up any foreign substance and throw it outside, so when your applesauce or smashed banana gradually disappears from the top of your frames, it can be hard to tell whether the fruit is truly being eaten or simply being thrown away.
University of Montana certified Master Beekeeper Katharina Davitt did a research project suggesting some benefits of feeding overripe bananas to bees, but reported that the bees typically interacted with the banana only when natural flower nectar was unavailable. Whether bees will eat banana pulp or not, smashed fruit should not be used as the sole source of bee feed. Even if the bees will consume these fruits, the mix of sugars, proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals is very different than the natural flower nectar and pollen that bees fare best on.
MYTH: I can’t feed my bees syrup because they will store it in their combs and make “fake” honey!
It’s hard to get bees to build wax comb in supers without feeding sugar syrup. The cost (in calories) to make wax is enormous, and bees must either use sugar syrup or natural flower nectar to make their comb. Sometimes, when feeding syrup to boost comb building, the syrup is collected and stored in the new combs. To the bees, it’s “honey” but we know it’s really just dehydrated sugar water. If this is extracted and bottled, it cannot be advertised and sold as honey, but it is perfectly safe for you and your friends and relatives to consume it. Sometimes it’s worth it to feed bees with supers of foundation on them so that they will convert the sugar syrup into wax. Then, when the natural nectar comes in, the bees can turn that into honey.
MYTH: If I don’t want to feed synthetic protein supplements, there’s no way for me to give them protein and boost their brood production.
We, like many beekeepers, sometimes give our bees formulated protein patties or dry bee feed mixed into homemade patties to help them raise more brood. But if a natural beekeeper doesn’t like those options, it may seem like there is no way to give your bees a protein boost. But that’s not true! By using a pollen trap on a strong hive when lots of pollen is coming in, you can capture and freeze a pile of natural bee pollen for later use. If you find a struggling colony later on that needs a little protein boost, you can shake and rub the dried pollen into an empty frame of comb and then insert it into the weaker colony. This lets you feed all-natural bee pollen to your bees, without introducing any protein that doesn’t come directly from flowers.
Click these links to read more about feeding explained more completely by season: Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring.
