Results showed dyed syrup wasn’t reliably traceable, making it safer to only feed bees when honey supers aren’t on the hive.
I really don’t like to give my bees sugar syrup, but it is better than letting them die. The reasons I don’t like to give them sugar syrup are :
- Sugar water is a poor nutritional supplement for honey and is the equivalent of giving snicker bars to kids to live on.
- Making sugar water is a lot of work for me and the bees to process. Time is very valuable to everyone and including our bees.
- It costs a lot of money to feed honeybees. It actually takes 1/2 gallon of 2:1 sugar water to make just 1 medium frame of capped food.
It may not seem like a lot of work or money for just 1 gallon of sugar water for your bees. But when you start keeping more and more bees it takes more time and money for each one.
As the colony grows and there are many bees, their nutritional needs increase, requiring more careful management.
2:1 sugar syrup dyed with green food coloring..
Newly established colonies (new bees) require supplemental feeding to help them produce wax and brood. Feeding honey bees should be done inside the hive to prevent robbing by other bees. Beekeepers should assess feeding in the fall to ensure colonies have enough stores for winter and monitor honey stores frequently to prevent starvation. Honey bees require carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients to thrive, primarily obtaining carbohydrates from nectar and proteins from pollen.
Sugar syrup is sometimes necessary for colony survival, but it’s a poor substitute for honey and becomes costly and time-consuming as hive numbers grow.
Green food coloring was tested in sugar syrup to prevent accidental extraction of syrup as honey, since capped syrup and honey look identical.
ADDING GREEN FOOD COLORING TO BEE SYRUP
Even though I really don’t like to feed bees sugar syrup, I have to do it when it is needed. I never, never, never want to have any sugar syrup ending up in a bottle of my honey.
It can easily happen to anybody, as capped honey and capped sugar water look exactly the same. If you feed your bees a lot of sugar syrup in the fall, that will lead to excess capped sugar syrup in the spring. That capped sugar syrup can get lost in the shuffle and end up getting uncapped and extracted in the spring. Improper management of sugar feeding during the honey flow can result in sugar syrup contaminating honey stores, especially if it is stored in the brood nest.
Out of curiosity and because I had to feed my bees sugar syrup anyway, I dyed 2 gallons of syrup I gave them. I did it by adding a few drops of food-safe green coloring. Sugar syrup should be cooled to room temperature before being fed to bees, and feeding should be done when temperatures are above 50°F for liquid feed.
The liquid food coloring in the link works much better than the gel type. They took the green syrup down without a problem and stored it away just like any other.
Questions We Are Trying To Figure Out:
- Is the most recent sugar syrup stored (the green one), the first consumed by overwintering bees or the last one consumed in the spring?
- Does this green syrup or any capped sugar water make it through the spring and into the summer?
RESULTS OF GREEN FOOD COLORING IN THE BEE SYRUP
After feeding the bees several gallons of green syrup, it turns out that it was very hard to find green syrup in the comb.
This would not be a reliable way to make sure you are not harvesting sugar syrup.
A more reliable way to do this is to only feed bees syrup when honey boxes are not on the hive.
If feeding your bees with honey boxes on the hive, there is a reasonable chance that the syrup will be mixed with harvestable honey.
Dyed 2:1 syrup next to traditional 2:1 syrup.
HOW TO MAKE SUGAR SYRUP FOR BEES
For a guide on how much sugar and water it takes to make a gallon of syrup or to find out how much syrup for your bees to store 1 frame of honey, see this page : Sugar Syrup for Bees. A common ratio for sugar syrup is 1 part sugar to 1 part water by volume.
To prepare sugar syrup, gently heat the water and stir in the sugar until it is fully dissolved, being careful not to boil the mixture to avoid caramelization and potential toxicity to bees. Allow the syrup to cool to room temperature before feeding it to your bees.
Adam Hickman owns Foxhound Bee Company and is a certified EAS Master Beekeeper. Before ever selling a box through Foxhound Bee Company, Adam wrote beekeeping blogs for education. Adam regularly teaches beekeeping classes through Foxhound Bee Co and also through his local beekeeping club.