Keeping Bees · Hive Health

Feeding bees sugar syrup

This guide was written by Dietmar Klimkeit of Amazing Bees and is preserved and maintained here by BeesFriend as a knowledge-sharing legacy — including his own feeding method and recipe, kept as he documented them. For a colony of bees, sugar syrup serves as a substitute for honey, and it’s common practice to feed it when a colony doesn’t have sufficient stores. In a good season healthy bees gather more than enough and need no help at all; but a hive that built up late, a poor season, or a winter after the honey has been taken can leave a colony short. Knowing when to step in — and doing it in time — is one of the first responsibilities of keeping bees.

A note from BeesFriend

We don’t feed our production hives. Our bees keep enough of their own honey that supplementary feeding simply isn’t part of how we produce — it’s part of why our honey is what it is. This guide is preserved from Dietmar’s work as beekeeping knowledge for others, and for the welfare cases where feeding is the right and kind thing to do: a rescued swarm arriving with no stores, or a colony that would otherwise starve. Feeding to save a colony’s life and feeding to push honey production are not the same thing — and as a rescue, it’s the first of those we care about.

How do you know they don’t have enough food?

For a beehive to be prepared for winter here in Victoria, at least 60% of all combs in the hive should be filled with honey. If they’re not, sugar syrup can be fed as a substitute — but only before it gets too cold.

Opening a hive during the cold season to inspect frames for food is not an option. Instead, simply lift the hive at one end for a weight check. A single 8-frame hive should contain a total of five frames of honey; at an average of about 2.38 kg per frame, that totals roughly 12 kg of honey — just the honey. As a rule of thumb, a common wooden 8-frame hive should weigh approximately 24–30 kg as an indication of sufficient winter stores. (This weight check is covered alongside the other stores and brood checks in how to inspect a hive.)

Honey is fuel — the vicious circle

To fly, a bee has to raise her internal body temperature to about 35°C, and honey is the fuel she burns to do it. This creates a trap. When there is too little honey in the hive, the bees can’t generate the energy to warm up and fly, so they have to stay home — and a bee that can’t fly can’t fetch more food, even when nectar and pollen are within easy reach outside. Low stores lead to no flight, no flight leads to no foraging, and the colony spirals into starvation with food all around it. This is why feeding, when it’s needed, has to happen before the bees run out.

Timing, and how much

Feeding is only useful while the bees are still active enough to take it and process it. Once day temperatures settle below about 13°C the bees can no longer handle sugar syrup properly — they can’t evaporate the water content and store it in the comb — so feeding that late does no good. On milder winter days, above roughly 9°C, bees will still be out foraging; here in Melbourne something is in flower at almost any time of year, especially in suburban backyards.

When, before winter, the box feels very light, Dietmar’s practice was to feed around 15 litres of sugar syrup over two or three sessions, using two or three 2.5-litre jars each time. How much a colony needs also depends on its size and subspecies: Italian bees typically maintain a bigger population through winter and require more stores, while Caucasian and Carniolan bees shrink their colony to a small winter cluster and consume far less.

Feeding too much does no harm — the excess is simply stored away. Feeding too little, or too late, is what kills a colony.

Dietmar’s sugar syrup recipe

Preserved as Dietmar Klimkeit wrote it. This is his documented method, shared as a record of his practice.

The following produces approximately 2.5 litres of sugar syrup:

  • Pour 1 litre of hot tap water into a pot or bucket.
  • Add 2 kg of white sugar. (Do not use raw or brown sugar.)
  • Add ¼ teaspoon of citric acid (optional).
  • Stir until the sugar is dissolved — three to five minutes.
  • Let the syrup stand until it clears, at least one hour, stirring several times until all sugar grains have dissolved.
  • Dissolve one multivitamin tablet in a glass of water and add it to the syrup (optional).
  • Fill your feeding container(s) with the syrup.
  • Ensure the syrup does not exceed room temperature when fed to the bees.

On the citric acid: it’s added to mimic honey, which contains inverted sugars. Table sugar is pure sucrose; when heated and mixed with an organic acid (citric, vinegar or tartaric), some of it goes through inversion, which is easier for the bees to digest. On the multivitamin: added on a trial basis, it showed positive results — bees in better-than-usual condition after the winter break. Don’t drop the tablet straight into the syrup as it won’t dissolve; dissolve it in half a glass of cold water first, then stir it in.

Feeding methods

There are various ways to feed syrup, some needing purpose-built containers. Frame-replacement feeders mean taking a frame out of the hive while feeding — and an empty frame comes back empty — as well as an unnecessary interruption, removing the hive mat and swapping a frame. Dietmar preferred a very simple method that needs no special equipment and doesn’t disturb the hive mat, using a few 2.5-litre twist-cap jars:

  • Punch 1–1.5 mm holes into the metal lid with a nail, so the bees can suck the syrup out.
  • Place the filled jars upside down onto two pieces of timber laid on the hive mat, leaving a small gap between the hive mat and the jar lid for the bees to access.
  • Cover the feeding jars with an empty box, and close the hive lid.
  • Come back for a refill after two to five days (longer when the outside temperature is low).
  • Remove the empty box and jars once feeding is complete.

Top feeders are also practical — a hive-top feeder sits above the frames, inside the hive, and holds a large volume with very little disturbance, which makes it a good choice when you’re feeding a lot or often.

One method to avoid is the entrance (or “front”) feeder that sits at the hive doorway with the syrup exposed. Feeding in the open, right at the entrance, advertises food to every other colony and wasp in the area and can trigger a robbing frenzy — which can overwhelm a weak or newly rescued colony, exactly the hive least able to defend itself. As a rule, feed inside the hive, not at the door.

How we feed a rescue

We don’t feed our production hives — but a rescued swarm is a different matter. Colonies come to us sometimes with no stores at all, and getting them established takes more than sugar water. Alongside syrup, we use a fermented kelp supplement (Agrisea) for the trace amino acids and minerals it provides. It isn’t cheap, and we use it anyway — a rescued colony didn’t choose its situation, and giving it the best possible start is the whole point of what we do.

Pollen matters too

Sugar syrup replaces the carbohydrate a colony gets from nectar — the energy — but it isn’t the whole diet. Pollen is the colony’s protein, and it’s what raises healthy young bees, especially the winter bees that must live for months. A colony going into winter needs adequate pollen stores as much as honey. When you assess a colony’s readiness, read both.

Knowing whether a colony has enough to eat is read at the hive — see how to inspect a hive. Feeding well is best learned hands-on; we offer beekeeping mentoring by arrangement for serious learners. New to it all? Start with what beekeeping actually involves.

Content originally written by Dietmar Klimkeit, Amazing Bees, Melbourne — preserved and maintained by Laszlo Kun of BeesFriend as a knowledge-sharing legacy in Dietmar’s memory.