In a perfect world, our honeybees would have all of the food and water they’d need to survive and thrive. As a practical matter, many of our planet’s bees die from starvation or thirst.
We proactively take steps to ensure that doesn’t happen to our bees.
For water, we have a nearby 3/4 acre pond for the bees to drink plus a seasonal creek. And we recently added a well for backup water in the unlikely event the pond goes dry one rain-free August.
In addition to planting wildflowers that bloom in different months (ideally from February to December), we supplemental feed our beehives.
In the picture above, you see a split top-feeder. The open part of the hive feeder shows a pollen patty. Now the other side of the feeder gets filled with bee syrup (a 1:1 sugar/water mix).
However, we only feed bee syrup when we aren’t collecting honey from a hive. Because the bees will take the syrup inside and store it alongside the honey. If you’ve tasted honey that’s unusually sweet, chances are it’s been diluted with sugar this way by either an amateur beekeeper who didn’t know any better or a dishonest commercial beekeeping operation that increases production by including bee syrup in the harvesting.