Capetonian beekeeper Melissa Harris shares why it isn’t a good idea to feed bees sugar and what you should rather do to help them through winter.
Cape Town, South Africa (07 July 2023) – Melissa is based in Sunningdale, Cape Town; she has been a beekeeper for the last six years. Her beekeeping practices are linked to sustainable and ethical methods so her advice is wholesome and generally great for helping bees.
Last year, we shared Melissa’s take on what to do when finding a bee swarm, this is valuable information as we get closer to Spring (you can find it here) but as we are still in Winter, there are a few things she hopes to raise awareness about.
“I’ve been tagged in a fair few posts today pertaining to the feeding of bees.
One was when a person was giving maize meal to bees daily, and the other was the dreaded apple and apple juice again.
Please do not feed bees.
As brilliant as they are, if folk keep putting stuff out for them, they will keep coming as it’s a quick, easy option. It’s not the best one for them.
We do more harm when meaning to do good.
Our amazing bees are conditioned to survive our winters, and we do not need to be interfering as much as we do.
I don’t even feed my bees sugar water.
Brown sugar gives the bees the 💩💩💩💩💩 and sugar water stays in honey stores for ages.
When sugar water is fed in the winter to bees, it gets the queen laying again, and there is a knock-on effect with the availability of pollen stores to be able to feed the larva.
In another feed, there was a recommendation to feed bees honey. This is also BAD news. You will have every single bee in a 6km radius coming to rob it all out. You are also risking the spread of infection when feeding honey, if in fact, it is even real honey. Just rather don’t.
The best thing we can do for our bees is to plant.
Plant, plant, plant forage for the bees.
Engage with local nurseries regarding bee forage and rather not feed them stuff that is not good for them.”
You can follow Melissa via Facebook here where she shares endless amounts of information about bees as well as some of her epic swarm rescues.
So what can you plant?
Be sure to plant a variety for every season. South Africa is blessed with great winter weather. This means gardens can maintain some form of plant life throughout the cold. Frost will kill most plants but not all.
Be sure to research what is indigenous in your area and which plants will weather the weather well!
Winter flowering plants that are indigenous to South Africa include:
- Aloes (the options are endless)
- African Daisies
- Strelitzia (Bird of Paradise)
- Sour Fig
Then… there are hundreds of options that can be planted that may not be indigenous but are GREAT bee foods. These include:
- Borage
- Cosmos
- Marigolds
- Calendula
- Roses
- Rosemary
- Lavender
- Honeysuckle
- Asters
- Zinnia
- Sunflowers
- Yarrow
- and so much more!
SANBI also has a very detailed list of indigenous plants that you can find here.