>I've really never tried dry sugar. Seems it would be much more convenient and less hassle. I already see the pro, what is the pitfall?
The colony does not respond in the same way to dry sugar as to syrup. Syrup is likely to stimulate some brood rearing. Dry sugar is not. Syrup is put away and stored and then capped. Dry sugar is usually not touched much until the cluster has contacted it and then it's used more like emergency rations than stores. How good or bad this is depends on your situation. If they already raised a fall crop of "fat" bees then it's better NOT to stimulate them too much so you avoid too many bees going into winter. If the fall flow failed, and you give dry sugar, you may fail to get those "fat" bees.
> Will it work here in the deep south were we may not hive the same amount of winter moisture build up inside a hive (I'm thinking colder climates and temps outside create more moisture inside due to hive heat etc?) Is it really more for emergency feeding or can it be used for build up reliably?
In the spring when they want to build up, it will get burned in the process, but it doesn't tend to stimulate them to, it just facilitates build up without starving. How they will respond is probably pretty dependent on location and climate and I've never done it in your climate.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm#drysugarhttp://www.bushfarms.com/beeslocality.htm>Should it work for me know? How do you add to hive, on top of newpaper under cover or do you have some kind of trays.
See link above for pictures. I put the newspaper right on the top bars, some sugar, a little spritz of water to make it clump, some more sugar, a little spritz of water to clump and an extra spritz at the front edge to get them to recognize it as food and not trash.
> I really like the idea of not handling the syrup if I don't have to.
It really is a LOT easier.