Normally when establishing a hive the beekeeper feeds the bees in the early spring, until the warm weather ushers in a good nectar flow. Then, when fall approaches, a careful beekeeper will feed the hive again for a month or so to ensure that the colony has enough food to overwinter.
Well the drought is SOOOO bad here in Central Texas that all area beekeepers are being encouraged to feed their bees throughout the entire summer. Sugar water is the best food. It's easy to make: boil the water, take it off the heat, stir in the sugar, cool to room temperature, put it in the hive feeders. The ratio of sugar to water is huge, though. The recipe calls for equal parts water and sugar by weight.
Realize that a gallon of water weighs 8.3 pounds - so for every gallon of bee food, I dissolve one and a half regular 5 pound bags of sugar into it. Consider that each of my hives is going through two gallons of food a week. Multiply that by 2 hives, and it turns out that I'm using over 30 pounds of sugar a week!
I really should be feeding them twice a week since the feeders are dry each time I go out, but my work schedule has been crazy - making it hard to get out to the hives more than once a week. And also, do you have any idea how expensive sugar is???
You can imagine the looks I get when I schlugg my grocery cart to the check out line full of bags of sugar. Like a drunk covering their tracks, I tend to go to different grocery stores each time so people can't follow my sugar buying habits.
This morning the check out lady looked in my cart - full of 8-10 pound bags of sugar. She was around 60 if a day, maybe 5'2", toting a BMI in the 30+ range, and sporting 3" of root growth. In a sarcastic Boston laced accent she asked, "Planning to do a lot of baking are we sweetie?"
Yes, I am DEFINATLY going to have the most expensive honey ever produced.
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