How to Make Supplemental Sugar Patties
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Bees consume sugar when they run out of stored honey. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)
How to Make Supplemental Sugar Patties
I am getting ready to make another batch of supplemental sugar patties for my honey bees. These sugar patties keep bees fed when they run out of honey, something that can happen in February and late winter, early spring.
Bees cluster inside hives during winter and will move to the hive top for supplemental food. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)
Springs can also be very wet preventing bees from foraging in nature so I like to have extra food on hand, just in case.
A bowl, a spoon and a container to put the mix in is all you need to make sugar patties.
It is very easy to make homemade sugar patties, especially the way my beekeeping friend David showed me.
David uses aluminum pie tins so I will start with those quantities. For one pie tin, either 8" or 9," pour 2 cups sugar into a bowl. Spray with 40 squirts out of a spray water bottle. Mix with a wooden spoon or your hands. Pack into the pie tin. Allow a couple of days to dry.
When using clear suet containers, you will need 1 cup sugar and 20 squirts of water from a spray bottle. Mix. Pack into a suet container. Allow to dry.
David said sometimes he adds a drop of lemongrass, food grade essential oil to each patty. I skipped that step in making mine.
The first sugar patties I made I dried in an oven warmed to 100F, then turned off. Not sure that is necessary unless conditions are very humid.
To feed, place in a top feeding shim under the inner cover to supplement winter honey supplies.
One of my bee colonies eating one of David's homemade sugar patties in a pie tin.
Once bees have a pollen supply from the garden they will stop taking the sugar. The sugar patties can be saved for later use or added to water to make sugar syrup.
Flick the patties once in the hive to make sure they aren’t too dry. If they feel like a brick, spray gently with water to rehydrate them without wetting your bees.
Charlotte
