While honey is natural, sugar water (simple syrup) is generally better and safer for feeding bees, especially for supplemental energy and comb building, as it's pure sucrose similar to nectar, cheaper, and avoids spreading diseases like American Foulbrood (AFB) found in unknown honey, which can devastate hives. Honey is ideal for brood (larvae) and young adults, but feeding it from outside sources risks introducing deadly pathogens, making plain white sugar syrup the preferred choice for beekeepers.
Most beekeepers will need to feed their honeybees at some point. Honey is best for bees but sugar water can be an emergency life saver for hungry bee colonies. - Beekeeper Charlotte If you love beekeeping or want to know more about all bees..... Visit me @ https://carolinahoneybees.com.
The "3 feet, 3 miles rule" is a beekeeping guideline for moving hives: move them less than 3 feet (so they find the new spot easily using landmarks and scent) or more than 3 miles (so they're forced to reorient to a completely new landscape). Moving them an intermediate distance (e.g., 50 feet to 2 miles) confuses forager bees, causing them to return to the old, empty location and get lost.
Varroa Mites are the #1 enemy of honey bee and beekeepers around the world. These external parasites feed on the blood of adult honey bees, and reproduce on honey bee pupae. They can considerably weaken individual bees, and often vector viruses and other pathogens between bees.
The 7/10 rule in beekeeping is a guideline for when to add a new box (super) to a hive, suggesting you add it when bees have built comb, brood, or stored honey on 7 out of 10 frames in the current box, indicating they need more space and preventing congestion, which can lead to swarming. This proactive expansion supports the colony's growth, reduces stress, and maintains natural hive behavior, but it's also important to consider factors like time of year and overall hive health, not just frame count.
This method can provide a supply of syrup for up to a week. Mixing a 25-pound bag of sugar in a 5-gallon bucket, filling it with water an inch or so from the top, and using a drill to mix until fully dissolved can save time and effort in the long run.
Simply incorporate scents that humans find pleasant and bees find repulsive. Some of these off-putting fragrances are peppermint, spearmint, eucalyptus, and thyme.
It is not necessary to kill these animals as their effect is minor. The most significant tropical predators to be avoided are ants, hornets and wasps, and the honey badger. Ants can be especially damaging to honey bees in the tropics and can destroy entire colonies very quickly.
Although wasps, yellow jackets, and hornets look nasty, bees are far more dangerous. Bee stings contain more venom than the other insects, and bees are more likely to sting. A person is 42 times more likely to die from a bee sting than a poisonous snake bite.
Follow these October beekeeping tips to keep your bees safe and healthy and make the most of the fall season.
Think all bees look alike? Well we don't all look alike to them, according to a new study that shows honeybees, who have 0.01% of the neurons that humans do, can recognize and remember individual human faces.
"Do you know that...? - Old bees don't return to the hive in the evening? They spend the night on flowers, and if they have the chance to see another sunrise, they resume their activity by bringing pollen or nectar to the colony. They do this sensing that the end is near.
Place a feeder filled with sugar water close to the hive entrance to attract bees quickly. Utilize a shallow dish or a specialized bee feeder to reduce the risk of drowning. Monitor the feeder regularly, maintaining adequate sugar water levels for easy access.
1 Gallon Feeder Pail – When feeding bees during times of dearth and/or robbing, the 1-gallon feeder pail is a great choice as it can stay protected inside a hive body.
It often works within minutes
In most cases, your bee will recover quickly after drinking some sugar-water. Offering sugar-water often works even if it appears to you as though your bee is dead!
Varroa destructor, the Varroa mite, is a parasitic mite that attacks and feeds on honey bees. These mites are currently the greatest threat to beekeepers and their colonies; varroa is the most serious pest of honey bees, inflicting more damage and higher economic costs than all other apicultural diseases.
Caucasian bees are sometimes described as the gentlest of all honey bees. They are dark colored to black with grayish bands on the abdomen. They tend to construct burr comb and use large amounts of propolis to fasten combs and reduce the size of the entrance.
Neem, Mint, Citronella, Eucalyptus, and Cloves are some of the most common and effective ways to repel bees.
Cinnamon To The Rescue
You need to sprinkle cinnamon around the beehive every day for around 1 or 2 weeks for this method to work. In that time, the bees will find a new hive and move away because of the strong cinnamon smell.
smell: the bee does not like the smell of mammals; other odors (hair spray and lotion, chemicals) can also increase aggressiveness; the time of year: the level of aggressiveness remains very low during the honey flow; the bee breed: heredity influences the level of aggressiveness.
General honeybee aggression
Honeybees generally attack only to defend their colony, but will also attack if they are seriously disturbed outside the nest. Common sources of attack stimulus for honeybees include alarm pheromone, vibrations, carbon dioxide, hair, and dark colors (Crane 1990).
The 7/10 rule in beekeeping is a guideline for when to add a new box (super) to a hive, suggesting you add it when bees have built comb, brood, or stored honey on 7 out of 10 frames in the current box, indicating they need more space and preventing congestion, which can lead to swarming. This proactive expansion supports the colony's growth, reduces stress, and maintains natural hive behavior, but it's also important to consider factors like time of year and overall hive health, not just frame count.
Basics of bee feeding
In the USA, “fall” feeding may start as early as late August or early September, depending on your climate. Calendar-wise, that time frame qualifies as summer, but it's included in the fall feeding schedule to promote successful overwintering, and you'll feed a thicker syrup.
In many regions, it's best to start feeding in late summer or early fall, typically in August or September, to ensure that bees have enough time to store sufficient food before winter sets in. The exact timing may vary depending on your local climate and the specific needs of your colony.