Day 11: Feeding the New Bees

Bee undertakers, what a sad job. This morning when I was out gazing at my hives I saw a couple of bees dragging little bee corpses from the hives and flying off with them. I wondered what they did with them so I watched one. I really thought she was going to bury her charge as she just kept flying it around and then dragging it along the ground as if she were looking for the best grave site. Anthropomorphizing aside, I think the dead bee was somehow stuck to the live bee and the live bee eventually managed to shake the dead one off and then flew away. What a short life individual worker bees have.

It's only Wednesday, I was in the hives for a thorough inspection on Sunday and I'm not supposed to be back in there till this coming Sunday, but I had to go in today to fill the feeders. I was concerned on Sunday because all four feeders were bone dry and I don't want to be starving my bees. So today I went out--no hat, no gloves, no smoker!--and just peeked into Hive #2 (the Lang with the package) at the feeder end (I didn't even take the inner cover off the body, I just slid it back enough to expose the feeder). It was bone dry. Not wanting to mess around, I went to HEB and bought 24 lbs of sugar thinking I'd have some left. I don't. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I keep telling myself it's a learning curve. You can't remember everything. The first mistake I got halfway through making was that I got out a big enamel pot to cook up the sugar syrup in. We've been having trouble getting that much sugar to dissolve in a gallon of water so I thought I make a good, old-fashioned sugar suspension by heating it up. It got pretty hot and I got to thinking. There was a niggling little worm in my head that said you're not supposed to cook the sugar syrup as it can be bad for the bees. So I hopped on the handy-dandy Interweb and validated my fear. As with many things, there is no straight up answer. What is definitely bad for bees is hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). Really. It is a "naturally-occurring organic acid with the formula C6H6O3. It is often formed during the dehydration of sugars, especially fructose, and is known to be toxic to honey bees." The original paper referenced by that article is here. So will cooking your syrup kill all your bees due to increasing the amount of this naturally occurring organic acid? Nope. But there is a question about increased bee mortality due to increased levels of HMF caused by applying heat to the sugar, and since I have new bees they are stressed enough without my slipping them some additional toxins with their supper.

After I turned off the stove (the syrup hadn't even boiled yet--much less caramelized which is an absolute no-no) I mixed the hot syrup in with some cold water to bring down the temperature, and then I took the first pitcher full out out to the hives. Because Hive #2 has the package bees--the ones who didn't have any brood, any pollen or nectar stores, just a queen and a bunch of bees--I am the most concerned about their health. I took the divider feeder out of the hive (it was bone dry) and it was full of bees. I shook them out (twice) so I could add the syrup, and after it was filled I replaced the sticks in it so the bees would have something to climb out onto when they fell into the syrup.

Hive #1 with the sugar syrup running
out and down the left front leg.

Before I could do Hive #3, the hybrid hive, I had to refill my syrup pitcher in the house. So I removed my bee garb, traipsed back to the house, and refilled the pitcher--and this time I was careful to put in exactly one gallon so I would know how much syrup the bees were going through in a specific time period. I trudged back to the hive (of course I was trudging: It was 92 degrees out), re-donned my garb, relit the smoker, and opened up Hive #3. This time I decided to leave the feeder in to minimize the intrusion for the bees, and I carefully and slowly poured the syrup in. This feeder was also full of bees, but I poured really slowly so they had time time to crawl up the sides (they're grooved) or onto the stick rafts in the bottom. Yes, several bees got drenched with sugar syrup, but by the time I finished they all had a big grooming party going on so I am choosing to think of it as a spa day for bees.

Wash, rinse and repeat for clothing off and on, traipsing, trudging, and smokering. Then it was time for Hive #1. Did I say this is a learning experience? I didn't mention the process of opening the hive last time, but I did it the same this time: a little puff of cool smoke to the front entrance followed by lifting the top and puffing a bit in there and putting the top back down for a minute. Then I removed the top and slid the inner cover back to expose just the feeder. As I did on Hive #3, I gently filled the feeder with one gallon of syrup till it was almost to the top, and then I relaxed and enjoyed the spa party. The girls were happily grooming and sipping syrup--it was a great party. And then I heard a sound suspiciously like water running... I had forgotten that this feeder that came with the nuc was cracked. Now I really like Bee Weaver, but why would you put a cracked feeder in with a nuc that someone purchased? Give the customer a new feeder for heaven's sake! Nucs aren't cheap.

I looked at the front of the hive and sugar syrup was flowing out the front of the hive and down one leg. Let's get this party started! Bees poured from the hive and flew in from who knows where else for this sugar bonanza. Normally I would be afraid of robbing (where bees from one hive come to steal the honey from another hive by force, as opposed to by stealth) but this is my strongest hive, it was queenright on Sunday, and it's a standard Lang hive with foundation frames (less work for the bees than foundationless where they have to build the comb from scratch). So I put the top back on, carefully nudging the grooming party bees out of the way, and I watched the activity at the front of the hive for awhile. The bees seemed to be trying to grab as much of the syrup as they could. As I stood there, I saw a little whiptail lizard cruising toward the base of the hive where there were a lot of sugar-drunk bees lounging about. Whiptails eat bugs so I wondered if she (they are almost all female) was there to grave rob (from this morning's bee activity) or feast on sugary bees on the ground. I left without finding out.

Thus end the bee adventures for today.