Feeding the Bees

We have tried a few different methods of feeding during our time with the bees.  The bucket method I've mentioned previously in this blog was messy and sometimes we would find dead bees in the puddles of sugar water that dripped onto the frames.  These days, when we feed our bees, we use the plastic baggy method. Each gallon-sized Ziploc baggy contains four cups of sugar mixed into two cups of water (usually - you can change the ratio depending on what your bees need).

My hubby tells me the difference between his method and what most people do with the baggy method is that most people just place the bag of sugar syrup on the frames, but he finds that messy and so puts the bag on the inner cover and puts an empty medium super over it. This has been very effective and not messy. We have not had bees drown with this method, either. All other syrup feeding methods we have tried resulted in some dead bees.

Here is my son feeding his hive late last winter:



and my hubby feeding his:



Simply fill the bag with your syrup, lay it in, and cut a slit.  I highly recommend this method of feeding.