Here is a quote from Bee Culture magazine, "Sugar for Bees", by Ann Harmon, Feb. 17, 2017. "As mentioned earlier our table sugar, sucrose, is obtained from sugar cane and from sugar beets. The sugar from each is identical - both are 99.95% sucrose. The 0.05% difference is from processing, from using different clarifying agents. However these are not toxic to bees or humans. They are perfectly safe, ordinary inorganic compounds".

The idea of beet sugar making bees ill stems back from the 1900s when the technology to clarify/purify beet sugar wasn't developed. The undigestible solids were still present and indeed had an effect on the bees, if you look at very old beekeeping books, you will see the mention of only using cane sugar. However, technology has progressed and they have been chemically identical for decades

📖✈️🐝🐝 Great comment, thank you for sharing that info.

When and where is Tennessee bee conference in January 2021?

@@charlesoneill466 Lebanon, TN on January 8th & 9th. If you are interested you can find the information on Kamon Reynolds KZfaq channel. Kamon is the person that has put it together.

Hi Richard. Thanks.

Thanks.

Thanks.

@@bobbinnie9872 No problem please keep the videos coming it's great to learn from a Master Beekeeper like yourself 👍🏻

I did that with a jar of honey while taking it to my car.

Good idea. Thanks.

where do you buy a 71mm hole saw

@@raylopez5904 Amazon is where I got mine. I made a video about it that has links to the 71mm hole saw in the description.

We use a one piece 70mm jar lid to plug the hole. Works great.

Hy Ryan. To be honest we use 6 to 8 a lot of the time. It's enough to draw foundation but not so much that it goes too fast.

If the jar were to leak or dribble it could go to the bottom board and go through if the cluster was too small to take care of it.

We occasionally have a few dead bees. It's worse with very small colonies so I don't use them in that application and feed them from overhead with a jar or small bucket. We routinely take them apart and clean them once a year but will also clean them anytime if we see an issue. They're not perfect.

We use a 70mm single piece metal lid commonly used on quart honey jars.

We try to be finished feeding by November when the day time highs begin to be below 50f.

I would feed one to one sucrose syrup until the goldenrod is done and the if they're not heavy enough switch to thicker syrup until they are. They are being stimulated now by the incoming pollen and feeding the thinner syrup will compliment that in terms of hygienic behavior and the other chemistry that will occur.

I don't know if they ship to Italy. 2 inch tint plugs, www.penpoly.com/

Hi Gerry. Our Sourwood ends in late July and the colonies are usually full of bees at time so they will continue drawing foundation as long as they have the right feed. We can draw out and fill another 10 frame deep in 2 1/2 to 3 weeks using 1 to 1 sucrose.

I think 4 or 5 holes for small units works good. Then add more as the unit grows.

Interesting idea, thanks.

Hi Jim. Less than one to one will work fine but if you want them to gain weight at a substantial rate also, 1 to 1 would work best. See our video How to apply beeswax to plastic foundation. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qsx9fLZ0nuCtkYE.html

@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you!

We do use the same hole saw for both but it's strictly out of convenience. The hole size isn't as critical with the double screen board. All the lids we drill now have holes centered but we still have some from the past when we drilled off center. We were trying to keep the jar lid we use to plug the hole out of harms way when we stack pallets of bees. The 1x6 board underneath the pallets tends to sit on top of the jar lid if the hole is in the center of the lid but now we don't worry about it anymore. The jar lid filling with water isn't a problem.

Hi Dave. We do have bucket feeders but we haven't made the move to shipping bee supplies yet.

@@bobbinnie9872 OK well let us know when you do I would rather buy from you then some of these other places thanks

Thanks for letting me know. We have them at our store if interested. 706 782 6722.

It doesn't seem to matter.

@@bobbinnie9872 Good to know. Thanks.

Sorry, I don't know about that.

Hi Kathy, thank you. Dadant sells a case of six 5 lb. honey jars for $22.55. Ouch!

@@bobbinnie9872 Thanks for all . Hope you have had a great bee season. 🐝

Hi Andrei. There is always a very small amount left.

@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you

@@trisleaner5738 great to hear 👍🏻

For building comb and gaining weight 1 to 1 is best. For building comb and building brood 1 part sugar to 1.3 parts water is best.

We purchase from "Pipeline Packaging" in Kennesaw, Ga ( they have many more outlets around the country) and "All American Container in Atlanta".

Yes. Call our store at 706 782 6722 and we cn take care of you.

Hi Randy Yes, you can easily tell if syrup is beginning to ferment by smelling it. We begin drawing out foundation in mid spring and continue throughout the summer. It helps if fresh pollen is coming in and the temperatures have warmed up a bit. For us that is late March.

@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you, sir.

Try putting something heavy on your lids... bricks, rocks etc

We use HDO (high density overlay). It's commonly used by large concrete wall contractors for making forms. We purchase ours from Mid South Lumber in Atlanta.

Sorry, I don't know where it can be purchased in Canada.

Hi Donovan. I like the idea of the feed being metered out over time rather being dumped in a couple of days which is what happens with inside feeders and strong colonies. This provides more stimulation for brood rearing and is better for drawing comb. Of course there are times when it's OK for getting a lot of feed in them fast but that"s rarely necessary for us these days.

I believe that would help and may try it on the next round of buckets I purchase.

@@bobbinnie9872 or how about spray-foam insulation on those bucket feeders. That would block the light even better and it would probably last longer than paint on plastic. And it would probably keep the buckets from dribbling by keeping the temperature more constant.

I used an inverted sugar called "Drivert" in the past and liked it. It was expensive.

@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you very much. I have learned a lot from your KZfaq videos. For me, the invert sugar is of great importance because I isolate the queen for about 8 months (!) in the so-called isolator of Hmara. For this, it is necessary that the bees are not exhausted from processing sugar. If you are interested in the topic, you can check out the Ukrainian beekeeper Malykhin's channel (in Russian) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/a9WUodV33NOZZXU.html

If you are referring to queen cells they hatch in about 16 days from start. A five pound package will be almost a box of bees and can draw a lot of comb fast in a good nectar flow. The quantity of bees will begin to expand in about four weeks when the new brood begins to hatch..

2-13/16 is good. 71 mm, which you can find online, is also good. The info for the custom manufacturer is in the video description. This one is extra heavy duty and I believe it was around $230.00.

@@bobbinnie9872 Thanks much Bob. I appreciate your time and direction to the drill bit mfg. link.

@@dandahlberg4452 I started using a Milescraft circle jig for my router after I saw this video. Works great. Cheaper than above bit...

I use a 70mm I got from Amazon. Works perfectly

For most purposes we use between 6 and 8 holes. If it is a big colony and we want to gain weight fast we put in more.

Ok noted

It doesn't seem like it would cause problems but to be honest I have never done it.

Thanks Bob. I placed fondant in my hives just as a precaution. I wasn’t sure if the vapors would ruin the fondant or make it uneatable for the bees.

@@HereWeGoSteelers Please let me know if you see any issues. I'd like to know.

@@HereWeGoSteelers Try using Oxalic Acid as a Trickle (% of OA in 1:1 Syrup) Subject to your Agri Law etc. (? in USA.) Here in Scotland OA Trickle is done more than Vap Application. Means the OA is passed about from Bee to Bee (transfer) than that of a Vap Gas impregnating everything in the Hive. Just my thought... 👀 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Happy Beekeeping 2022. 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Any thoughts from other Beeks ? Watching Bob's Fab Video Feeding Series. 😎

We buy containers from an array of distributors because of our honey packing business and add buckets on to our large orders. The two we most commonly use for buckets are All American Container in Atlanta, Lisa 864-320-7606 and Pipeline Packaging in Kennesaw, Ga , Mellisa 770-420-8181. I know they both have warehouses in many locations around the country.

Depending on the amount of buckets and how fast you need them. I've had good results by going by a bakery shop that throws them away when they're pulled all the icing out and they give them to me . I've gotten over a hundred this last summer free three gallon .

Even in nature the bees tend to be clustering within several combs. Normally, the comb they're clustered in will be mostly empty cells with food on the perimeter. During warm spells they will move up to be in touch with the food or pull some in.

@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you so much for your time. I think next year i will experiment with removing a center frame so they can invent their own intricate network of inner-sanctum comb for the queen with whatever passageways they might make. (like ants?). I feel like the impassable center frames is a bad transportation idea. I assume she'd rather be boxed-in warm by a hundred fluttering drones/workers rather than a piece of wood/plastic which probably doesn't conduct heat as well as a big ball of comb. Has anyone ever disected a big blob of comb to see if it has any golden-ratio properties or interesting engineering pathways? Thank you.

Sorry, I do not. Our loads of sugar are brokered through Dadant in Florida. Ask for Jerry or Ray if you need a full load.

Not so far.

Ask for Jerry Latner at Dadant in Florida.

No, it is very bad for the bees.

@@bobbinnie9872 that is good to know ty, any way i got 6 hives through winter 6 out of 9 im in york pa and we gotten couple days the past two weeks of 55 degrees here and Wednesday i checked to hives and queens have just started laying no capped brood yet but they had eggs and larva about 3 to five day old larva. It is down in the 28 to 38 degrees and up just breaking 41 but next we it suppose to get in the 60s being that queens just started laying again how soon can i expect to see swarm cells cause i am looking to make splits off swarm cells and when i do swarm cell split i have seen videos on how its done they move the cells in to a nuc and leave them where mother queen was and then they take mother queen and dump her and her bees off on a sheet or ply wood and let the march back in the hive, Trovinoff split im sure your are furmillure with this procedure. My question is, is this a good procedure would i be better off grafting a few what im wondering what is the safest procedure with out messing up my bees and to hinder there swarm tendencies for the rest of the yr?? I do have a favorite hive and they are Russian how true they are being Russian or (german black ) i dont know what i do know is they are an acute little black bees that can get pretty stingy. I favor this hive cause i feel it has my best queen i want to make more hives off this queen. I have started keeping bees three yrs ago and this is the first yr a gotten bees through winter it like wow now what to do like wow almost feels like coming out of winter the stakes have gone up and more challenge ahead Take care

Hi Bruce. We put a mild bleach solution in, slosh it around, wait a minute and then rinse the bucket out with a hot water nozzle.

@@bobbinnie9872 thank you. I only have 25 hives. I did find two gallon buckets at Lowe's with a lid that has an O-ring so I'm going to try them out. They seem kind of flimsy. I also bought 50 lid plugs from your store. I have learned some valuable information from your series on feeding bees, thank you.

Thanks.

204-474-6020 rob.currie@umanitoba.ca

I don't know. We make our own. If interested you can order them from our store. 706 782 6722

⁠@@bobbinnie9872Mr. Binnie, my brother owns a bucket and barrel manufacturing company. If you’re ever in need of buckets I can give you his contact information. Might be able to save a little money buying directly from the manufacturer.