Some Like it Hot

Notes: Fed bees 2:1 sugar mixture.

I just ate an ant! They are hot--it tasted like black pepper and stung my lip and tongue on contact. I was in the act of feeding the bees a 2:1 sugar/water syrup, and when I licked some of the spilled syrup off of my finger, I got an ant in the mix. I wonder why they are hot. I always assumed it was because they carry around all of these chemicals in their abdomen that they release when threatened. But I'm not actually sure...

I was adding a new bottle of sugar water because the girls had finished off what I gave them on 10/1. They had been eating their stores, which means that there probably isn't enough flowering stuff around for them to make enough honey to get through the winter. I also haven't seen my queen or any eggs in a couple of weeks now. Alan suggested that the queen might be slowing down laying for the winter and recommended that I give them a 1:1 sugar mixture to stimulate her laying followed by a 2:1 sugar mixture for stores.

I gave them the 2:1 mixture today. They didn't crowd into the space under the bottle when I removed it like they did the first time I fed them. I don't know what that means, but it was certainly easier to get the job done this time--not one casualty.

There were quite a few ants around, and when I removed the top box to expose the bottle, it was obvious that it was the syrup that was attracting them. When I put the new bottle in, I actually taped it to the inside cover hoping I could seal out the ants. I suspect that the ants will find a way in regardless.