When to Feed Winter Patties, Pollen Patties, Sugar Syrup, or Candy Boards

During the first warm weather that comes with early spring, we're delighted to see that our bees have survived the winter. What do we do now? How can we help them — and do they even need our help? Which feeding methods are appropriate, and which could cause real trouble if we don't use them properly? Explore this guide to emergency and supplemental bee feed to determine how and when to offer pollen patties, winter patties, or liquid bee feed.

When to provide supplemental bee feed

First, take a moment and ask yourself if the bees really NEED any food. Consider the season and whether supplemental feeding is necessary.

• Spring feeding (of liquid syrups) can be a great way to help a colony build lots of wax comb and draw out their frames. This is particularly helpful for small colonies and new colonies that need to build some comb "real estate" to fill with brood and food.
• Fall feeding is a great way to boost the winter supplies of a colony that just hasn't made enough honey to get through the upcoming winter.
• Winter feeding, however, is usually a sign that something has gone wrong — that your colony has burned through more honey than expected before spring.

Many beekeepers regularly have to offer late winter or early spring feed, but remember that doing so is a signal that you and the bees should have done a better job loading up the combs the previous autumn.

What is the best emergency winter feed?

You can give bees combs of capped honey or solid sugar as emergency winter feed. The easiest winter feed is a frame of capped honey — the food your bees are built to eat all winter. If you have capped honey frames (either pulled from another colony that didn't survive the winter or one you stashed the previous fall) simply insert them near the edge of the bee cluster on a relatively warm day. Be mindful of the outside temperature to avoid exposing your bees to frigid temperatures during honey insertion.

When inserting a honey frame, place the honey as close to the cluster as possible, but don't separate the bee cluster. You want the bees to find the honey and gradually center the cluster on the new frame.

If capped honey isn't available, offer your bees supplemental sugar in other ways. The methods below rely on the same basic principle: Honey bee colonies tend to eat their way upwards during the winter, and by placing sugar-rich food on the top bars of the frames holding the bee cluster, the cluster is likely to creep upwards into contact with the emergency food. Solid sugars (in any form) will be slowly dissolved with moisture from the cluster's own breathing, and they’ll use only as much as they need at one time.

Using winter patties for bees

Betterbee carries a pre-formulated product called winter patties that you simply open and place in the hive. These winter patties (not to be confused with "pollen patties," described below) are specially formulated and scented to provide your bees with lots of energy-packed carbohydrates and just a small bit of fat and protein to keep them healthy. We recommend putting two patties (with the plastic removed but the paper left in place) right on the top bars above the clustered bees at first and then adding more over time based on the needs of your colony.

Homemade and DIY solid bee feeds

You can prepare other solid feeds for your bees yourself. The easiest DIY approach is to place a sheet of newspaper or tissue paper on the top bars above your bees, then pour a few pounds of granulated white sugar on top of the paper. The moisture of the cluster will form a crust on the sugar pile, and the bees will slowly tear through the paper and eat the sugar.

This method is easy — but while some colonies will accept feed in this form, others may ignore the sugar and starve with food sitting within tongues’ reach. For that reason, many beekeepers prefer different methods of sugar preparation.

Solid winter feeds, including candy boards, fondant, or sugar bricks, require specific recipes and time spent in the kitchen. The basic idea is to mix and heat sugar and water (sometimes with a few other ingredients) to make a sticky paste or a solid block, and then place it above your clustering bees so they can slowly dissolve it with the cluster's own moisture, as with solid sugar.

Most of these methods are preferred to the granulated sugar method above because the bees tend to accept these forms of sugar more reliably. Explore our recipes to learn how you can make sugar bricks at home — including options for using your oven or a dehydrator.

Is liquid feed suitable as emergency winter feed?

Liquid feed is not a good option for winter. If your bees don't have enough honey saved and without new nectar coming in from early spring plants like dandelions and maple trees, you will need to supplement — but feeding bees liquid food during cold weather is a recipe for disaster. Bees huddled together in a winter cluster won't break out of that cluster to collect liquid feed. Even if they do collect it, they would have to defecate as they digest large amounts of liquid feed. The bees can even freeze to death if your feeder leaks.

When to feed bees pollen patties

What about offering pollen patties (also called Global patties)? Remember that emergency winter feeding is all about preventing starvation, and pollen is not really food for adult bees — it’s best for the developing larval bees that will form the future workforce.

Pollen patties are a protein supplement that helps colonies grow lots and lots of young bees, but many beekeepers don't actually want giant colonies right as spring arrives. Colonies that get large very quickly in spring are primed to swarm, and drastic swarm-prevention methods may be needed to keep a huge colony from attempting to swarm in May.

If you plan to make nucs or splits from your colonies, you may choose to offer supplemental "pollen" as early as 3 weeks before the first natural pollen becomes available in your region. However, if you're not planning to pull bees and brood out of your hive in the spring, feeding supplemental protein may be a recipe for unwanted swarms a month or two later.

Even worse, some well-meaning beekeepers will give their bees a pollen patty in late winter but then leave the bees alone until natural spring pollen starts to flow into the hive. This can spell disaster if your colony greedily eats the pollen patty, starts rearing lots of brood, and then suddenly runs out of protein-rich food for them as they grow. If you can't commit to regular pollen feeding, it would be wise to steer clear of protein-rich bee food.

If you want to learn more about offering emergency winter feed, check out this video from our Betterbee YouTube channel.

So, to recap: If you peek inside or lift your boxes and detect little to no remaining honey, you can offer your bees stored or salvaged frames of capped honey. If you don't have spare honey frames, offer dry sugar in the form of a candy board, fondant, a sugar brick, or granulated sugar poured onto newspaper and set just above the cluster. If you’d prefer not to offer dry sugar, consider winter patties instead — but don’t offer liquid feed. Only feed protein if you know for sure that you want your bees making lots and lots of brood, producing booming (and swarm-prone) worker populations later in the spring. And, if you choose to start feeding pollen, it's your job to continue feeding it until your bees can meet their needs with the natural bounty of nearby flowers.

For more beekeeping tips and tricks, explore our Beekeeper Guide.