Feeding: when, what, and when never

It's the first week of April. Anne tips the back of her hive up a little to feel its weight, the way her mentor showed her. It comes up easily. Too easily. Her colony made it through the winter, and now it's about to starve, with the first flowers still weeks away.

Feeding is one of the simplest jobs in beekeeping, and one of the easiest to get wrong. It comes down to three questions: when, what, and when never.

When. In Ontario, the most dangerous time for starvation is late winter and early spring, March and April, when the colony is raising brood and eating fast with little to gather. Heft the hive from the back. If it feels light, feed. The other big feeding season is fall, getting the colony ready for winter.

What. In spring, feed thin syrup, one to one by weight: one kilogram of sugar to one litre of water. Use a feeder inside the hive, like a pail, a hive top feeder, or a baggie laid on the frames. The Ontario Beekeepers' Association says baggies are best in an emergency, and advises against open feeding in the yard in spring.

In fall, feed thick syrup, two to one: two kilograms of sugar to every litre of water. Thin syrup stored for winter can give the bees dysentery. Ontario guidance calls for at least fifteen litres of syrup for a full sized colony, and a hive that weighs at least thirty two kilograms in a single brood box, or forty five kilograms in two.

Start fall feeding as soon as the honey boxes come off, and finish by mid October. Once it's colder than about ten degrees Celsius, the bees stop flying and can't take the syrup down.

And pollen substitute? In Ontario it's usually unnecessary. The feeding guide warns it can push a colony into raising more brood than it can support, and into swarming early.

One more situation. If a colony runs short during a late summer dearth, the feeding guide recommends a frame feeder, which sits inside the box in place of a frame. Use it only when no honey boxes are on the hive, for exactly the reason we're about to cover.

Now, when never. Never feed syrup while honey boxes are on. The bees will store it in the supers, and your honey becomes sugar syrup. Stop spring feeding once the dandelions bloom, well before the supers go on. And the feeding guide says never to give dry sugar to a starving colony.

Now let's change one fact. Suppose Anne puts off fall feeding until November. By then it's too cold for the bees to fly and take the syrup down. The colony goes into winter light, and a light colony in November is a colony at risk of starving by March.

The mistake beginners make is feeding by the calendar instead of by the weight of the hive and the bloom outside. Heft first. Feed when they need it, and stop when the flowers take over.

Here is the rule, in one breath. Heft the hive, feed one to one syrup in an in-hive feeder in spring until the dandelions bloom, never feed with honey boxes on, and in fall feed at least fifteen litres of two to one syrup, finished by mid October.

That's the end of module five. Next, the pest that decides whether most Ontario colonies survive the winter: the Varroa mite.