This time of year you can find us in Aldi’s stocking up on beet sugar. The checkers don’t blink twice when I step up to tell them there are 15 four-pound bags in my cart.
It’s all for the bees.
We mix up a LOT of sugar water these days! We use a 1:1 ratio of granulated sugar and water, heating it in a large pan on the stove just until the crystals disappear. Then we put it in plastic buckets and our bees make the sugar water disappear.
Sometimes a gallon in a couple days. For each hive.
With five hives to feed, I go through 20 pounds of sugar water at one feeding.
But I don’t mind. The bees do not make honey with the sugar water, but it’s their primary diet this time of year so they don’t break into their winter supply of honey.
It’s also important that this generation of bees go into the winter as healthy as possible. Normally bees live about six weeks, however, the winter generation needs to make it through winter.
When it turns really cold, the queen will quit laying so there will be no new bees until spring.
There’s not much blooming in my gardens so whatever nectar the bees can find needs to be converted into honey. We have adjusted our fall feeding to include pollen patties, which are high in protein.
It is wonderful on these warm October days to see our bees going in and out of the hive, doing their normal business. Maybe bees aren’t able to experience happiness, but I sure do.
Bee Lady Honey 