Feeders
12 guides tagged Feeders
Spring Beekeeping: The Eight Jobs, In Priority Order
Spring is the only season where the colony is growing faster than you are. Population doubles on a two-week clock, drones appear, swarm pressure builds, and every job you postpone gets more expensive. This is the working spring checklist: what the bees are doing biologically, the eight jobs in the order they must happen, the gear each one demands, the mistakes that cost people their honey crop, and how to shift the whole thing for the South, the Midwest, and the northern tier.
Updated Aug 202618 min read
Hive Top Feeder vs Entrance Feeder: Which Should You Buy?
An entrance feeder puts a jar of sugar syrup on the doorstep of your hive and announces it to every colony within two miles. A top feeder puts the same syrup inside, where only your bees can reach it. That difference has killed more small colonies than any other feeding mistake, and it decides this comparison.
Updated Aug 202613 min read
Fall Beekeeping: The Season That Decides Whether They Live
We will say this plainly rather than burying it: fall is the most important season in beekeeping, and it is not close. The bees being reared right now are the winter bees, physiologically different animals that must live six months instead of six weeks, and they can only do that if they were raised by a colony with a low mite load. Your August and September decisions determine whether the colony sees March. This is the working fall checklist, in priority order.
Updated Aug 202619 min read
How to Feed Bees Sugar Syrup: Ratios and Rules
1:1 by weight to stimulate spring buildup, 2:1 to pack fall stores, plain white cane sugar and nothing else, mixed with hot water off the heat and never boiled. Plus the rules that matter more than the recipe: when to stop, why supers on means no feeding, and how not to start a robbing war.
Updated Aug 202619 min read
The Best Bee Feed Supplements (2026)
A splash of lemongrass and spearmint oil in sugar syrup is one of the oldest tricks in American beekeeping: bees take the syrup faster, the bucket keeps longer before it goes cloudy, and a newly installed package acts like it has decided to stay. We ranked five feeding stimulants and protein boosters, and we are equally clear about the thing they are not, which is medicine.
Updated Aug 202614 min read
Beekeeping in Cold Climates: The Northern Playbook
Upper Midwest, Northeast, Mountain West, and the Canadian border run beekeeping on a short fuse: a compressed build-up window, a fall feeding deadline that does not move, and a five-month winter. Cold is not what kills colonies up here. Condensation, light stores, and August mites are. Here is the whole northern management set, in the order it actually matters.
Updated Aug 202621 min read
How to Install a Nuc: The Calm Way to Start a Hive
A nucleus colony is a working hive on five frames: laying queen, brood, stores, and an organized workforce. Installing one is ten unhurried minutes of moving frames in order. Here is the complete walkthrough, from reserving the nuc in winter to the moment you add the second box.
Updated Aug 202617 min read
How to Install a Package of Bees, Step by Step
Three pounds of loose bees, one caged queen, and ten minutes that feel like an hour: the complete install-day walkthrough, from the syrup spray to the candy release, plus the day 3-5 queen check and the day 7-10 first inspection that tell you whether it worked.
Updated Aug 202618 min read
The Best Pollen Patties and Substitutes (2026)
Sugar keeps bees alive; protein makes more bees. We ranked the pollen patties and substitutes that drive late-winter buildup and carry colonies through pollen droughts, covered when protein feeding actually helps and when it backfires, and flagged the small hive beetle rule that decides how much patty ever goes on a hive.
Updated Aug 2026~14 min read
The Best Winter Bee Feed (2026)
Once cold weather ends syrup season, a light colony lives or dies on solid feed placed directly over the cluster. We ranked the candy board and fondants we would actually trust a winter to, covered candy boards versus fondant versus dry sugar, and laid out the hive-weight math that tells you whether you need any of it.
Updated Aug 2026~14 min read
Your First-Year Beekeeping Calendar, Month by Month
Beekeeping is a calendar sport: every month has one job that cannot be done in any other month, and the colonies that die in February were usually lost to a task skipped in August. This is the whole first year on one page, December ordering through your first spring-two inspection, on a US temperate baseline with honest adjust-by-region notes for the Gulf South, the northern tier, and the arid West.
Updated Aug 202622 min read
The Best Bee Feeders (2026)
Feeding is how beekeepers buy time: for a package drawing comb, a nuc building up, or a light colony racing winter. We ranked the five feeders we would actually put on a hive, top feeders that pour gallons without opening the brood nest and entrance feeders that make spring stimulation cheap, and covered the syrup math and robbing rules that make any of them work.
Updated Aug 2026~13 min read
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