Opinions on adding nutrients to sugar water?

Beekeeping - Basics
1

I have heard that some people add nutrients to their sugar water to help the bees get a more balanced diet. One instructor of mine mentioned bird water supplement (Amino Acids).

thanks,
Lorne

2

Yes, some classes I have gone to have talked about this

http://honeybhealthy.com/aminob.pdf
https://www.dadant.com/catalog/m01914-amino-b-booster-16oz

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3

Thanks for the links Marty. After reading the first article, I had more questions…

In the article it warns against feeding their mixture in the fall, because the hive might overeat. Why is that only a problem in the fall? And… is the problem of overeating only an issue when you use their recommended “Honey-Bee-Healthy” (fermentation inhibitor and flavor enhancer) since it makes the sugar water taste better.

Do you run the risk of keeping the bees from doing their jobs of gathering water/pollen on their own if you feed them too much?

How do you know when you should stop feeding the sugar water? After your frames are full of comb?

4

I think it’s all about when you want your bees to start hibernating for the winter and how much brood rearing you want to occur. At some point there will be no nectar/pollen for them to forage for therefore a lot of brood rearing should not occur.

5

I don’t know about honey bee healthy but you need to make sure the queen lays lots of winter bees. These are the ones that do not themselves look after much brood and live till the next year to keep the colony going. If you fill the brood nest with sugar you won’t get those winter bees. It’s a balancing act.
@Martydallas the bees won’t rear brood if there is no pollen but they will stop if there is no room

6

There’s a great article recently published called fat these skinny bees it talks about what time of year you should feed your bees when they’re not forging themselves. Different types of food will stimulate different activity. The research paper appears to be long, but really it’s only about half the number of pages due to the fact the latter half is talking about each of the beekeepers they interviewed and studied.

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