Published in the New Zealand Beekeeper, May 1974, pages 41-43. This trend partial rejects the increasing price paid for honey, also the need for extra winter stores due to the paucity of late autumn and early spring nectar sources.
Many beekeepers pour the sugar into the hive, close the lid, then hope for the best.
Sometimes when they come back the bees have converted all the sugar into ripened stores. It is a strange fact that two hives can appear equal in bee strength, brood and stores, yet one will readily store sugar while the other will not, especially if dry sugar is fed. In the ease of dry sugar the bees add a great deal of water to the crystal, more in fact than to concentrated sugar syrups or honey. This will mean the bees have to make extra foraging flights to collect water. According to Simpson, food containing more than 50 per cent or more sugar is diluted first before being ripened.