Feeding yours bees wort

This was just a random though while I had while driving home, and not something I would try without serious research. With that being said any brewing beekeepers tried spring feeding of a strong hive with wort?

ColdToes said:

This was just a random though while I had while driving home, and not something I would try without serious research. With that being said any brewing beekeepers tried spring feeding of a strong hive with wort?

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well it's a fair idea/thought, but I doubt that it'd be easy to find whether any research has been done to compare a wort to dissolved sugars.

I'd have thought that there's many times more "sugars" in dissolved sugar then there would be in a wort........ i.e. considerably more for them to "eat", and like any biological entity, would be most likely to go for the food source with the greatest level of energy - naturally plant nectar, as that's what they're familiar with, but next in line would be dissolved sugars etc.....

No scientific basis for that, just that it would seem to be the logical progression.....

Step right up Step right up...So the idea comes from a local story of a beekeeper illegally "open feeding" his bees with a candy cane by-product, the result was hives in three counties full of red honey with a peppermint flavor. Long story short many unsuspecting beekeepers are out hundreds of pounds of honey and a lot of money. While most of this stuff went to the trash someone is buying what's left for the purpose of making mead. When life gives you lemons...

Every honey is unique and directly influenced by its source, with that in mind my theory goes like this. Spring feeding of a strong hive with a high gravity wort using an in-hive feeder. Providing the hive with fully drawn frames to encourage the ladies too store the wort versus feeding it to the brood. This honey product would be harvested prior to the first nectar flow of spring so the hive would have little interruption. The health of my apiary is foremost if this would endanger the ladies in any way I would not try this, but I think this could be done and quite possibly result in something intresting.

There is already a certain (and varying) amount of maltose in honey, you would basically be increasing the maltose ratio in the honey. Depending on the other nectar sources, the flavour of the honey could be much maltier, maybe more like caramel, or at least "nutty" in flavour. This is an interesting idea & I hope somebody tries it, I'd love to compare the taste of that experimental honey with regular honey.
Regards, GF.

EDIT: I got to thinking about this & the way honey is made is made. Basically bees remove moisture from nectar. So if you feed them wort & they make it into honey, wouldn't you end up with something like LME?
Just a thought. Regards, GF.

Here's what happened when i tried it.... i put a tray of wort out to harvest wild yeast etc. in the morning when i went to get my pan i noticed there were several bees drinking from the pan. As a beekeeper i had the same idea as "cold toes" so i filled a feeder (chicken waterer) with wort around 1.080 OG. At first my girls loved it, but as the day went on they left it alone. then i noticed that they were dropping thier "poop" right at the hives entrance instead of far away.
SO i went to the feeder and observed that it was fermenting and mold was growing on it already. i came to realize that my girls suffered what has happened to us all.. a bad "case of the schlitts". so if you are going to feed wort be sure to stop fermentation. but that would mean adding chemicals which i don't use.

Cool story /\

I don't know jack about bee keeping, but whats going to stop sugar water from fermenting?

MarshmallowBlue said:

Cool story /\

I don't know jack about bee keeping, but whats going to stop sugar water from fermenting?

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Potassium sorbate would prevent fermentation...but I wonder if it would harm the bees.

ColdToes said:

Step right up Step right up...So the idea comes from a local story of a beekeeper illegally "open feeding" his bees with a candy cane by-product, the result was hives in three counties full of red honey with a peppermint flavor. Long story short many unsuspecting beekeepers are out hundreds of pounds of honey and a lot of money. While most of this stuff went to the trash someone is buying what's left for the purpose of making mead. When life gives you lemons...

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I have to ask...did you try the red honey? Is anyone selling it?

That is just too strange to not have a taste lol.

Man this winter has been hard on the ladies, just getting them through winter is now a priority. This experiment will have to wait for now.

Might have to work out a trade for some red mead.