Many questions are about spring feeding are asked by new beekeepers. And for every question, there are as many answers as there are beekeepers. There is no one way of doing anything when it comes to keeping bees. Spring feeding is no exception.

No matter what method of feeding you choose, there are two basic goals when spring feeding. First is to avoid starvation, and second is to stimulate brood rearing before the main flows.

There are also two basic rules. Number one, if you start feeding, don't stop. Number two, don't feed liquid syrup in the hive below 40 degrees F. Cold liquid dripping on the winter cluster can chill the cluster and kill your bees. And as you may already know, dead bees don't make honey.

First lets take a look at starvation. Starvation is caused by a few things. If the hive simply runs out of stores. This is not always, but mostly caused by the beekeeper not leaving enough honey for the bees to over winter on, and then build up in the spring. The second cause is no fall flow, and the only solution is to feeding in the fall, over winter with dry sugar or a candy board on (covered in another article), or feed in the early spring.

Another cause of spring starvation is feeding, then cutting off the feed. Some beekeepers start feeding their hives with the intent to giving them a little extra feed to get through to the nectar flows. This is a subject that was covered in another article in Bee Culture. When you feed your bees in the spring, you addict them to sugar. You stimulate them to raise more brood. When these bees emerge, they are nurse bees that are ready to raise even more brood. This can very quickly deplete the remaining stores of a hive and cause them to starve. A popular saying among beekeepers is "it is better to not feed at all, than to start feeding and then stop". If you start spring feeding, you must continue providing feed to them until there is a strong enough nectar flow to feed both the bees, and the brood. With every brood cycle you will end up with more bees, and more brood than the previous cycle. For this reason you must finish up with more feed than you started with.

There is one more thing to consider when feeding. When you stimulate brood rearing, the bees will also quickly deplete their pollen reserves. You will need to provide pollen, or a good pollen substitute to maintain brood rearing until pollen becomes readily available for the bees to gather. Have you ever heard the saying "you get what you pay for", or "you get what you put into it"? Don't skimp on the pollen, or pollen sub. This could be just as hazardous as feeding syrup, and then stopping. You can purchase pollen patties from most of the large suppliers.

Another good and cheap alternative is to make your own pollen patties. You can buy bags of Soy Flour from Walter T. Kelley's. We purchase a 50lb bag of Soy Flour, and a 50lb bag of brewer's yeast. The brewer's yeast provides vitamin B to the Soy Flour so they can actually digest it. We then mix in a cup of brewer's yeast to every four cups of Soy Flour, and 5% pollen to get them more interested in it. The mixture should be a 50% sugar, 50% pollen sub mixture. Then add in hot water slowly until you get a thick firm mix. You can mix as much of this, or as little of this as you need. We simply use a rubber spatula to scoop out a large glob of this for each hive. However if you only have a few hives, it's cheaper to just buy pollen patties, or small boxes of other pollen subs.

Now on to feeding syrup to your hives. In the spring we find that the best feeder is the frame feeder. The frame feeder is placed against the wall so as not to chill the cluster if the temps take a sudden late nose dive. However in most cases the bees can still get to the feed.

As spring progresses we switch to bottle feeders turned upside down over the hole in the inner cover, or on the top bars. This is done by placing a shim on each side of the hole and then sitting the bottle on the shims. A hive body is then placed around the feeder to protect it from robbers and pests. The reason we make this switch is that frame feeders cause some drowning. If you would rather not use frame feeders at all, you can also place the bottle feeder to the side of the inner cover hole. The bees will still be able to get to it, and if the temps drop you won't have cold syrup hitting the cluster. However if the temperature drops and the bees cluster, they will not be able to get to it.

When feeding in the spring, we need a 1:1 sugar to water ratio. This is closer to the water content of nectar without putting to much water in the sugar. However you can not simply dump in half a bucket of sugar, then fill it up with water, as this will not be 1:1. Logically it seems to make since, but sugar will absorb the water, and you'll end up with more like 2 parts water one part sugar. The sugar and the water must be measured separately, then mixed together to get the correct ratio.

Now the question is when can you start feeding. Queens will usually start laying again shortly after the start of winter. Shortly after that you can provide pollen sub, but in many climates it is to cold to feed syrup. The answer is simply when it is warm enough for the bees to brake cluster. Bees cluster at around 40 degrees F, and can fly at 57 degrees F. However if the sun is shining they may fly at 45 degrees. This is the general temperature range for feeding. The syrup needs to be at approximately 50 degrees F before the bees will take it. If you do feed at this stage, you should use a method that puts the syrup in their hive, again the frame feeder is a good choice for this. As stated above, stay away from any feeding method that will drip cold syrup on the bees. The best way to handle this is to over winter the hive with a frame feeder already in. This way you can quickly open the hive and fill the feeder without removing any frames or disturbing the bees much at all.

I try to start feeding at least two brood cycles before the nectar flows kick in. This allows the bees to raise enough bees to provide a surplus of spring honey. If you start feeding this early you will also need good swarm management, because they will swarm if you don't do something about it.

So the rules are:

1. If you start feeding, continue to feed until nectar is plentiful. If you can't finish, don't start!

2. Don't let liquid syrup drip on the cluster in cold weather.

3. Don't ignore their need for pollen. It takes more than honey or sugar to raise bees. They need protein as well.

4. Watch out for swarms. Give them plenty of space and check for swarm cells often. If you find swarm cells, make a nuc with the old queen to simulate a swarm.

Good luck!