Why and how to make bee tea: Supplemental honey bee feeding
You’re not the only one who enjoys tea time. Honey bees sometimes need supplemental feeding depending on the season or their colony health.
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This blog runs on several themes, and two big ones remain nutrient-dense food and beekeeping. Today these two themes intersect as we take a peek into boosting the nutritional value of supplemental feed for honey bees.
Feeding honeybees comes in many forms. Making sugar syrup from cane sugar is the most popular method among beekeepers in our region of North Carolina. Other methods include using corn syrup, creating sugar bricks or blocks, or feeding back honey to the colonies. Beekeepers can buy pre-made syrup from beekeeping supply stores or make their own. With many of these methods, beekeepers have the option to add supplements to the bees’ food. Ask any beekeeper and they probably know about or have used Honey B Healthy or Pro Health. These supplements use lemongrass and spearmint essential oils to help calm the hives, prevent syrup fermentation, and encourage more activity. Considering the properties of lemongrass and spearmint (anti-inflammatory, antioxidant properties, and can help manage stress and anxiety), and the intensive process to produce those oils, you could get closer to the source (although not as concentrated) and prepare your own bee tea. Remember, an essential oil from a plant and tea from the same plant are NOT equivalent by any means.
Essential oils are highly concentrated substances that require enormous amounts of organic matter to produce. I feel we can learn a lot from the research surrounding essential oils and their use in beekeeping, especially when it comes to finding effective ways of managing the biggest threat to honey bees: the Varroa mite (Varroa destructor). Insects published a study in 2021 that found several benefits like, “The effectiveness of essential oils against Varroa destructor is comparable to organic acids, but the application of essential oils causes a lesser degree of stress in bees than the application of organic acids.” The same study also cites that a colony’s overall health improves, a low level of mites can be maintained, and no risk of honey contamination has been found when using essential oils in beekeeping.
Bee tea adds layers of nutrients to syrup when it otherwise wouldn’t have any. Cane sugar has no nutritional value. None. The sugar is providing an energy source to help the bees get through times of dearth or overcome other stresses (like moving, creating a new queen, etc.), and it does nothing else. Honey B Healthy and Pro Health are popular supplements because their essential oils can help encourage new colonies to stay in their new space and can improve vigor in existing colonies. If a beekeeper doesn’t have these commercial supplements or chooses to make their own syrup, brewing some bee tea can help colonies in a few ways.
One of the things I love about brewing bee tea for my hives is that I can create a blend specific to each colony’s needs. For example, if I notice one colony struggles with a high pest load, whether Varroa mites or small hive beetles, I can add extra thyme, oregano, catnip, and/or peppermint to the tea. All of these herbs have compounds that can help manage pests. Thyme in particular is the primary base for the organic Varroa mite control commercial product Apiguard, which is a thymol gel. (I’m using Apiguard for the first time this year.) I know some beekeepers create a bee tea exclusively with thyme as an effort to combat Varroa mites. The idea is that the bees store the syrup around the colony and thyme’s presence essentially surrounds the colony population since honey bees move throughout the colony. For colonies that may be stressed from a split, a relocation, or had been the target of robbing from other colonies, yellow jackets, or hornets, I might choose to temporarily close their hive during the feeding and make a more calming blend of chamomile, lavender, lemongrass, calendula, and/or holy basil.
How to feed bee tea
Beekeepers have many options when it comes to choosing feeding tools. Some beekeepers choose open feeding. This means they’ll make a syrup station somewhere in the yard and it’s a free-for-all buffet. That means ALL. Lovely hummingbirds and butterflies might stop by, but so can hornets and wasps, and honey bees from colonies other than your own. Open feeding stations can contribute to robbing activity, show predator species where your colonies are located (if the feeding station is nearby), and could introduce disease if sick or pest-carrying honey bees from other colonies show up and share the same feeder. If I sound biased about this method, I am. I never recommend open feeding.
Some beekeepers choose to add entrance feeders. The benefit is that they can see the syrup level and can decide if they need to make more syrup with just a quick glance without disturbing the hive. The honey bees can access the feeder at their entrance, but these feeders give off aromas and can attract other species. They could attract robbing bees straight to the colony’s door. Another method I never recommend.
I recommend feeding methods that keep the food source inside the hive and only accessible for the colony it’s intended for. A few popular ways of feeding bees inside their hive include a frame feeder, round top feeder, and a top feeder. I know beekeepers who have used all of these methods and I’d be comfortable using any of these with my colonies. I always feed with the latter method—a top feeder. A frame feeder rests within one of the hive boxes and takes the place of one of the regular comb frames. You need to open the hive, access the box where the feeder rests, check it, and fill it. It’s a little invasive and often not a top choice for a beekeeper with many colonies. A round top feeder looks similar to a chick water tower. It stands on the top of the frames in the top box, then the beekeeper adds an empty hive box to protect it, with the top cover of the hive above it. My beekeeping mentor started using this feeding tool recently and he likes it. The benefit I see is that you can have multiple feeders and have one ready to swap out. That way you’re not juggling with pouring syrup in the middle of the bee yard. It’s also not too disturbing since you’re only opening the top cover and replacing the feed, if needed. The top feeder method—the one that I use—doesn’t requiring opening the hive at all. The top feeder rests across the entire length of the top box, keeping the colony entirely sealed. To check or fill it, I only need to lift the top cover and peek in. I often describe it as an indoor swimming pool for the bees, but if anyone knows honey bees, they know that they’re terrible swimmers. Fortunately, this style of “pool” has safety features. The feeder I use has a hardware cloth mesh that prevents the bees from getting in the deep end, so they can stay in the shallows and collect the syrup to take down and store. The top feeder I linked in this post has woodenware floats, little rafts for the bees to hang out on while they collect their syrup.
Time of year to feed bee tea
Honey bees can enjoy bee tea at any time of the year, however, as with most things in beekeeping, it depends. Beekeepers never want to add supplemental feeding to colonies they intend to extract honey from when the nectar flow is about to start or is active. If they were to feed at this time, the honey they’re extracting isn’t pure honey. It will be a blend of the sugar syrup. Winter is also a tough time to feed honey bees a liquid food supplement, depending on your region. Not only could the bee tea freeze and be inaccessible to the colony, but if temperatures are low, the bees won’t leave their winter cluster. They need food sources close to the winter cluster, which is why many beekeepers rely on sugar bricks or blocks that they rest above the cluster. (You can make your own sugar bricks and use bee tea as a base for it.) The best times of the year to feed bee tea are when you’re not planning to extract, times of dearth, and times of stress. The best time of the day to feed bee tea (if you’re following an internal hive feeder method) is late evening and as close to sunset as possible. Late feeding reduces the risk of wasps or other honey bee colonies smelling and discovering the syrup. Since honey bees are awake all night, they’ll take and store the syrup overnight.
Bee tea recipe
How do you make bee tea? If you’re making your own sugar syrup, instead of using water as a base for the syrup, use tea. You can brew the tea just as you would if you were making it for yourself. Bring about a quart of water to a boil, take it off the heat for a minute or two, then pour it over the herbs you’ve chosen. If you’re using fresh herbs, use a handful. If dried, about half that. Let it steep for 10 minutes, then strain the herbs. Start to add sugar and stir to incorporate. Depending on the time of year, you’ll follow a 2:1 or 1:1 ratio of sugar:water. (Fall generally prompts a higher sugar ratio.) Based on the ratio of sugar you’re aiming for, add 4 cups of sugar to the quart of tea if you’re doing a 1:1 ratio, or add 8 cups of sugar if you’re targeting a 2:1 ratio. Of course, if you’re making bee tea for multiple hives, scale the size up as needed. You can also choose a cold infusion method (I chatted about this in a recent post about summer teas for humans) and let the herbs steep in water in the fridge overnight. Then you can strain and warm the tea to make it easier to dissolve the sugar.
Herbs to consider for bee tea: rosemary, lavender, basils, thyme, oregano, chamomile, calendula, dandelion root, yarrow, sage, hyssop, lemon balm, lemongrass, various mints, catnip
Note: The Insects study referenced earlier came to the conclusion that the “potential best essential oils for Varroa control are peppermint [Metha piperita] and manuka [Leptospermum scoparium], followed by oregano [Origanum vulgare] and litsea [Litsea cubeba].” Again, essential oils are not the equivalent of tea, but we can learn from this research and make inferences for our bee tea selection.
Tea add-ons: Apple cider vinegar (ACV) and salts. I always add a tablespoon of ACV when I feed my hives. It helps to preserve the syrup if bees are slow with storing it, and it also has probiotic properties. I also add a teaspoon or two of salt to the teas to help give the bees some minerals.
If you don’t keep bees, ask a beekeeper if they use bee tea. Check out my earlier post about another question you should ask beekeepers.
