As we ease into the Winter months here in SE Michigan, the bees are tucked away for the Winter, perhaps with a bit of insulation on the hives and thoughts of adding additional food stores as we get past the holiday season. Until the temperatures continuously remain below freezing at night, a two parts to one part sugar syrup (sugar to water by volume) can be fed to the bees if hives seem a bit light on honey stores. I find that when using queen excluders the bees tended to backfill brood supers withthe Fall nectar flow a bit faster than when there is no excluder and there is easier access to a honey super above. Whether or not one feeds syrup in the Fall is up to the beekeeper. During some Falls, I have fed no hives while during others I have onlyfed syrup to those hives that seemed light. Lifting a hive in the back and getting a feel for the heft of the hive goes a long way in my decision whether or not the hive needs to be fed. In either event, I do make it a practice to put additional granulated sugar on top of the hive supers around the Christmas holidays or later, on one of those mild Winter days. Since the bees need to dissolve the sugar in order to ingest it, there is a greater likelihood of dysentery in the hive if granulated sugar is added too early in the Fall and the bees are relying on it as their primary food source. Honey bee dysentery is caused by a diet high in solids and can become particularly noticeable when the bees cannot get out for cleansing flights during the Winter. But, it is still better to have a spare food source in the hive for bees to rely on it if their own honey stores are exhausted. They may also use it if they have moved upward in the hive, even if stores were still available at a lower location. In either event,. we hope for those every three to four week warmer days when the bees can get out on cleansing flights and we might quickly peek in the hive to see if additional food stores are needed.
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