Should You Feed Your Bees in Late Summer or Fall?
A few days ago Sheri and I celebrated 38 years of marriage. We have six children and eleven grandchildren. Those of you who are our age know that time flies by so fast, especially the older you get. When you are young, you struggle to raise you family and pay your bills. When you get older you struggle with aging parents, health concerns and you worry about your children and grandchildren. It’s the cycle of life that has been going on since the beginning of time.
On your tombstone they will put your birth year and the year you died with a dash between those dates. The dash makes up everything you did in life. How does this tie into beekeeping you ask? Beekeeping is part of the dash, a hobby or a business, a way of getting our minds off of our troubles. It helps us enjoy being outdoors, enjoying nature and helps us appreciate the world we live in and the life we have.
Beekeeping gives us a distraction, a focus, an interest and a way to be busy with our hands and minds. Sometimes we feel that our bees need us…to feed them, to control their mites or to help them make it through winter. But we need them too, not just to pollinate and make us honey, but they become part of our family, like a pet. I’ve read that having a pet can have health benefits by reducing stress.
When I married Sheri in 1980 I never thought we’d be beekeepers or own a bee business. But here we are. Even though we both have college degrees and have had different careers, for over a decade we’ve enjoyed the life that the bees have given us or I should say our beekeeping customers have given us.
To be honest, we look at the orders everyday because it’s our bread and butter. Sheri and I do not have other jobs. No orders, no bread and butter. We look at every hive that is built and shipped out. Sheri sometimes touches up a blemish with a paint brush. Trisha staples cardboard corners on the hive boxes to prevent them from being damaged in shipping. Every queen I raise I’m proud to send her to a customer because I love her brood pattern and her daughter’s gentle disposition. Every winter-bee-kind board I personally pour, I mix it just right to help your bees survive a brutal winter. I labor over editing every online class to get it perfect. I invented the Burns Feeding System for fall feeding not to make a buck, but to help you and to help bees survive, to solve a problem of bees starving in the fall from protein deprivation. Everything we do is not about making a buck, but helping to solve a beekeeping problem. And when you place an order, you are helping us. That’s the dash, that’s life. As we help you, you help our family and we really appreciate that. You’ve helped us have a wonderful 38 years of marriage. This may sound too philosophical but beekeeping is art, science and a labor of love.
The best beekeepers eventually develop a three prong approach to beekeeping: Science, Art and A Love for Bees. To raise bees merely by science is unsuccessful. To raise them only as an art, is failure. To raise them only because you love them, but know nothing about the art or science ends in disaster. But the three together makes a successful beekeeper. Within the art, is the developed skill and the science. Love motivates us to do our best for our bees. In my lessons, classes, emails and videos I try to convey the art, science and love of beekeeping.
So when you are considering placing an order with us, know in advance that we really appreciate it so much. It’s rewarding to know that you see and appreciate our hard work and personal touch we give everything we do. Thank you.
Here’s what we are most proud of:
Our Online Beekeeping Classes From The Comfort Of Your Home
David’s Mentorship/Coaching Program - Email, Text or Phone David
Should You Feed Your Bees in Late Summer or Fall?
Beekeeping is stuck in an old paradigm in many areas. One of these areas is in fall feeding. The old paradigm says to feed 2:1 sugar water in the fall to help the bees build up their stores for winter. While this isn’t wrong, there is a more effective approach. 2:1 means two parts sugar and one part water making the syrup thicker so that bees can dry it into „honey” faster and store it into the comb. However, what’s missing in this approach is how to build up your fall population of bees of winter physiology. Summer bees live 45 days. This means a bee that you see going in and out of your hive in September and October will be dead in 45 days. However, bees raised in October and November will live 4-6 months and the more bees you have of winter physiology, the more heat your colony can produce in the winter allowing the cluster to move into honey stores more easily. However, colonies rarely build up fall brood on 2:1 sugar water. They need 1:1 sugar water with a teaspoon of protein powder, such as pollen powder. This stimulates the colony to build up more brood as during a nectar flow in the spring. Do not use an entrance feeder as this will cause robbing. Instead, feed from the top. Start this feeding in late summer (or a dearth) and continue through fall until the temperature drops below 50 degrees (f).
New studies show that nurse bees which are protein deprived will not be able to adequately feed developing larvae. Those larvae will develop into adult bees with many issues such as shortened lives. Bees need more than 2:1 in the fall. They need 1:1 with protein to help them build up healthy bees of winter physiology.
Use our Burns Bees Feeding System now to prepare your bees for winter!
Stop Smashing Your Bees!
Beekeepers Around The Country Rave Over Our Winter-Bee-Kinds
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Our Winter-Bee-Kinds are available for purchase. If you’ve never heard of our Winter-Bee-Kind, it was invented and created by certified master beekeeper, David Burns. He created a way to provide winter ventilation, upper insulation (to control condensation) and winter food for bees. David has a proprietary mix that meets the winter nutritional needs of bees.
For many years beekeepers have relied on the WBKs to get their bees through the winter. Obtaining a Winter-Bee-Kind requires planning!
We will not start shipping until cooler weather, in November due to the food content. This means that those who place their orders first will be the first to be shipped in November. YOU MUST QUEUE UP NOW!
For those placing their orders now, you’ll be the first to receive your WBK sometime in November.
BeeTeam6 is about to get even better. David and Sheri will now be including a beekeeping podcast several times a month.
Now it’s time to stop making silly mistakes that caused your colony to become queenless, weak or fail entirely. Beekeeping seems easy. The fellow down the road has some hives and he made it sound easy. The books made it sound simple. Different YouTubers made it sound uncomplicated. Yikes! They were wrong. It’s not as easy as it looks. You need a mentor.
Testimonial: „As a new beekeeper, the amount of information available is overwhelming, and often maddeningly contradictory. Also, the situation in MY hives never seems to quite match what the books and websites cover. I longed to be an apprentice to learn from a master, or to have that person come look at my bees and tell me what’s going on. But that simply wasn’t available to me…until I became a member of David’s Bee Team 6! Now I have a certified master beekeeper a phone call, text, or email away. I can send photos so that it’s like he’s looking over my shoulder into my hive with me. From persistent chalkbrood, to supersedure cells, to marking the queen…David has been there as my guide. He’s calm and cheerful and understanding even in the face of a tearful phone call from a distraught new beek. Also as a Bee Team 6 member, I get newsletters and videos with timely info-all of it goes into my three-ring binder, and I refer back to it all the time. I also took his online courses-and I can tell you that they are invaluable! In a world where normal apprenticing isn’t practical, David’s Bee Team 6 is the answer!”
Rhonda Morton
Corning, NY
Certified Master Beekeeper David Burns saw a problem and came up with a solution. The problem: New beekeepers making mistakes and failing to properly manage bee hives resulting in high losses. The solution: David’s mentorship/coaching approach that allows beekeepers to view important videos and read articles pertaining to seasonal issues. And the opportunity to call or email David’s personal cell phone when you need advice from a certified master beekeeper.
I’m glad you are keeping bees or thinking about it. Thank you for supporting our family business for all your beekeeping needs.
Sincerely,
David and Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
217-427-2678
New 2018 Store Location Hours:
Monday- Closed
Tuesday 10am – 2pm
Wednesday 10am – 2pm
Thursday 10am – 2pm
Friday 10am – 2pm
Saturday – 10am -2pm
Come visit us soon!
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