How much do bees eat?

The trip to my apiary is down two flights of stairs, followed by a hike to the bottom of the slope. After I set up my enclosed apiary, it wasn't long before I started thinking that there must be a better way to feed my new colony of bees than to haul baggies of sugar syrup down this slippery slope every few days. Not to mention cooking it up in my kitchen and waiting for it to cool off so I can pour it into a baggie, and then washing the pan and scrubbing sticky sugar syrup off the counter.

Then one day after I had carefully placed another baggie of sugar syrup across the top of the frames, I sliced it too far with a razor blade and it all spilled into the hive.

Oops! Maybe should have put a plate under it. Oh well, the bees will clean it up.

While the hive was open, I could see that they were starting to build comb between the frames. This was partly because the hive wasn’t perfectly level. Although the bees don't care, it makes it hard to inspect frames without tearing things apart. Another reason was that in all the excitement, I had forgotten to remove the empty queen cage which left a gap between the frames.

I removed the cage and used a knife to carefully remove two beautifully formed pieces of comb that they had built between the frames. I had a ceramic knife that was too dull for marmalade-making, but perfect for the job. Then I moved all the frames close together so there wasn’t any extra space to fill. I felt bad removing the comb they had worked so hard to build, but it can be reattached to an empty frame so the bees can recycle it, or you can freeze it for later.

Because new colonies don't have any pollen or honey stores, they are often fed pollen patties for the developing brood, and liquid feed to jump-start wax production. Despite the name, some pollen patties don’t contain pollen at all, but rather, a pollen substitute that is typically made from soybean flour and brewer’s yeast. You can find recipes online to make your own.

Pollen patties provide the protein that developing bees need, and are placed on top of the frames. Nurse bees eat through the wax paper covering and nibble away at the patty so they can feed it to developing larvae.

Liquid feed can be simple sugar syrup that you make by heating one part sugar and one part water, or a commercially-prepared liquid bee food like Pro-Sweet that has a composition that is closer to both nectar and honey.

It takes about eight ounces (.22 kilograms) of honey or other liquid feed, to produce one ounce (23.84 grams) of wax. And it takes up to ten pounds (4.53 kilograms) of liquid feed to produce one pound (.45 kilograms) of wax. A hive that is fully drawn out with 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) of beeswax can store over 50 pounds (22.7 kilograms) of honey. Of that, a backyard beekeeper might harvest about half and leave the rest for the bees. The bees eat honey so they can make enough wax to store honey, and so it goes…

Any way you look at it, it takes a lot of food for bees to make enough wax to build out a new hive, and my little colony had a long way to go.