A ‘dearth’ is a scarcity of something. In the Bible it assumes a more serious meaning, a famine, a consequence of divine judgment visited on people to test their faith. In the world of beekeeping, a dearth feels exactly like a Biblical event. A dearth can occur at any time: we had brief dearths this spring when heavy rains washed away nectar, but we usually think of them happening during dry periods in July and August.
Dearths are so difficult to manage. Bees build up their numbers in response to abundant resources, but when their forage crop is taken or finishes blooming, they are in a real pickle. Rather like school kids at the end of summer, they are bored, not enough to do, restless and downright contentious. But worse, because their actual survival is at stake. The test is, do we have faith that the goldenrod and asters will yield up resources in quantities sufficient for the bees to lay in honey for winter, sufficient to feed the crop of winter bees? (No!) Do the hives have enough honey on hand just to maintain the colony? (No!) Goldenrod is everywhere, and some years it is a valuable forage crop, and some years it has almost nothing to offer. Its value depends on rains in July, which we enjoyed. Promising, but… Will it work out? What if we trust, do nothing and are wrong?
What we have seen this week of Labor Day is, large, established colonies packing stores into their second 10-frame deep. Nucs, not so much. We decided to start feeding syrup to our 2026 colonies unless they were making honey in a super. The queens were mated in June-July, barely giving them time to lay enough to establish a robust work force. What tipped the balance was a trip to an out yard where most of its colonies were made this summer. That farm’s goldenrod was only just opening. We drove into the yard and were horrified by the clouds of bees zipping around with no apparent purpose. No orderly handing off at the hive entrances, outrage when we opened the lids, an overwhelming sense that something was not right. The nucs felt light, and a quick inspection revealed the cause for all the anxiety- no stores! Goldenrod at home was more advanced, but attitude was no better. So, time to feed, or lose colonies.
We have used all kinds of methods for feeding syrup and have finally settled on a system of mixing and delivering that fits our size. After weeding out the duds, we are going to feed somewhere north of 100 nucs. It is still plenty warm enough to feed syrup, but we have very little faith in Ohio’s weather and need the syrup to be put up as honey before it gets consistently chilly. A stiffer mix requires less evaporation. The mix at this time of year is a little more than 1:1 sugar:water. In a couple of weeks when the weather commits to cold, we will up the recipe to 2:1. Mixing thicker syrup does require heating the water. At one point we were mixing syrup and pouring it into quart jars in the kitchen. It worked, but it sucked. We are very fortunate in our facility and equipment. The farm was a dairy at some point, and the owner built a glazed tile milkhouse attached to a 40×80 foot bank barn. The milkhouse is now the honey house, sealed off, heated, wired with 110 and 220V, fitted with a hot water tank and floor drains. A couple of years ago we bought a 25 gallon wax melter which works perfectly for mixing batches of 100 lbs of sugar at a time. We used to feed using quart jars stuck on top of the lids, but daily rounds with 5 gallon gas tanks to refill the jars got old, and the occasional burst of robbing just made it awful. We invested in 1 gallon buckets and have yet to find a downside, aside from getting them thoroughly clean. To make feeding work, we use migratory lids over a ¾” to 1” feeding shim. Our super-sized barn has storage for most of the seasonal equipment on shelving units. It feels like going to the drive thru, stocking up on whatever pieces and parts are on order for the day.
We ran out of buckets and put quart jars on a yard of nucs. They drained them within a day. During a nectar flow, they won’t touch the stuff, so this was reassurance that feeding was the right decision. Except for lucky finds at the local groceries, the best sugar source, for us, is 50 lb bags from Costco. Feeding to fatten will continue for most of the rest of September, or until the hives pass the lift test. Feeding is still an expensive, unwelcome chore. It is also necessary stewardship.