Waiting for the Weather to Change

So these last couple days have been rain, rain--(go away come again some other day). With it being cooler and wet, rainy I decided not to risk angering the bees. I've been needing to get in to check the sugar syrup level. You see, when you first install a package of bees, it's a good idea to feed your bees. This helps them to build up the hive faster. They've got a lot of work to do in drawing out the comb on the foundation in the movable frames. I tried to give them a head start or at least to encourage them to draw out the frames faster by coating extra beeswax on my plastic foundation. A beekeeper can use wax foundation, where wires run through the wax to help hold up the wax. Bees like this the best, it's more natural. However, the foundation doesn't last as long, and the foundation can start to sag. Plastic foundation will last a long time and is more rugged. A small (and I mean miniscule, small) amount of wax is coated on plastic foundation by the companies that make them. By coating the frames with more beeswax, it's easier for the bees to add their own wax to the foundation. This is because bees add wax to the existing wax in order to draw out the foundation. If there's no wax there to start with, it takes more wax and work to draw out that comb.

Back to feeding bees: I feed them 5 lbs. of sugar dissolved in 2.5 quarts of water. This sugar syrup solution helps stimulate their wax glands. This has also helped them during the rainy weather when they've been unable to leave the hive to go collect nectar. You do have to be careful, though, because if you constantly give sugar syrup, the bees will start to store it just like they will nectar. This means your bees are storing just sugar water and not nectar that leads to honey. The beekeeping association here recommends that you feed your bees throughout the first year. We'll see what I do. My dad fed his bees just during the spring, early part of summer last year. He had one hive that took off like gang-busters, while the other was so-so. This is interesting, to be able to see the difference between an incredibly active queen and a complacent one, apparently. I sure hope I've got a gang-buster one!

Today the weather looks workable. Either way, I need to crack the lid to see how the syrup level is going. I originally put in 5 quarts of syrup (so just over a gallon). Bees could go through 1 gallon of syrup in 3 days (I remember reading somewhere). It's been over a week. So I'll be putting in another 2.5 quarts this afternoon at least. Maybe another 2.5 quarts if the other side of my hive top feeder is also low. I can see how an Arduino with some sort of a sensor for detecting the level of the syrup in the hive top feeder would be pretty sweet and convenient.