Feeding Bees though the winter.

[oliver90owner]

Do you have to freeze the frames as we have a super that we are going to use if we have too?

Freezing temperatures - normal scientifc reaction rate change. Any reaction roughly doubles in rate as the temperature increases by 5 degrees.

Sooo, reducing the temperature to freezer temperatures will arrest the rate of granulation. OK, I know there is an optimumum temperature for a lot of organic processes (enzymes, granulation of honey, etc) but the basic premise holds true.

Granulation will not occur at -19 C (or 0 F).

An addition - frame feeders are at the colony temperature, as an advantage.

Regards, RAB

 

[kazmcc]

Rab, do you feed after thymol treatment? Our mentor intends to feed ours when we finish treating. They haven't been fed at all so far as there is plenty for them to collect themselves. He intend to feed 2:1.

I am just wondering where they would put it. They are on brood and a half, and the brood they had in the super has now been replaced with stores, which when we checked they were in the process of capping. They had one frame left to draw in the super. In the brood box they have filled all the frames except the outsides of the end frames. Brood starting to shrink, but everywhere else is packed. Would feeding still be necessary?

Addition, this was the case 2 weeks ago. We started treating them so no checks since.

 

[Der Alte Fritz]

If you have a brood box and a super full of stores, that will be enough to see you through a British Winter. (10 brood frames @ 5 lb each plus 10 super frames @ 3lb each = 80lb. Aim is 50-60lb for a National sized colony)

But your treatment may have put them off collecting or unseasonally wet weather may have stopped it or something else may have happened so you need to check progress in case they have been using their stores now when they have a large workforce. I think the aim is to have that weight of stores by the time your bee numbers have contracted to just the winter bees.

We are in the opposite situation. The hive was moved about a month ago and the large colony has been eating the stores following the disruption of the move so we only have the brood box with the super half full of empty drawn comb. But with a large work force we should be able to fill at least half the super (and meet the target weight) if we start feeding now. So we are feeding 1 litre of heavy syrup every other day. 5 litres of syrup converts to a super frame of stores - 3lb. So it will take 10 days to fill one super frame. So a month at that rate will fill 3 super frames.

 

[beebreeder]

Before long all the new beeks will think it 'normal' to feed bees fondant throughout the winter months.

Let's get it in context here. Fondant is really only needed in winter as a fall-back for insufficient stores being provided in the autumn.

Naturally, bees survive or perish dependent on the stores put down for over-wintering. Occasionally a colony will perish if the weather stops them moving to new stores, but that is not the norm.

If they have sufficient stores at the start of winter they should still have at least a little left by the time foraging commences in earnest in the spring. That is the greater 'danger time' for starving, not half way through the winter if the beekeeper has done the job properly.

Feeding fondant unecessarily will likely have the effect of leaving no decent brooding space come the time for colony expansion. New beeks beware.

RAB I hope you agree, the other problem with a broodbox still full of syrup sealed and not used is when the first nectar starts to flow you have the possibility of a super full of sugar syrup not honey as bees always move food upwards.
kev

 

[oliver90owner]

beebreeder,

I most certainly do agree. That aspect did not cross my mind when posting as I rarely feed sugar anyway.

Last year one of the Dartingtons had, almost perfectly, removed one half of each frame of feed and moved vertically, It made organising the brood nest a right pain and she was up in a super I added before I could get them to expand across the other half of each frame which was still full of stores. There was no option to add extra brood frames as the nest was probably almost ten frames long already. I shall try to make sure the insulation does not slip down on the 'far side' this year.

I remember when I started, I shared the first takings with my mentor, from whom I purchased my first two WBCs. He was good enough to say nothing, but later I realised that he probably got a lot of sugar honey from that 'harvest'. Can't be sure but it did not granulate....

Regards, RAB

 

[beebreeder]

RAB
I don't know about you but my dartington (the wooden one) has been a fantastic colony this year, spent most of the summer on 16 frames of brood and bees with honey boxes above and frames reguarly taken to make up nucs, not even a wiff of a queen cell and lovely bees to handle. The best season for the Dartington in 6 or 7 years. The beehaus was set up with a nuc so is getting established but the divider doesnt fit anymore so could'nt do a split in the hive without packing the gap with foam, seems to have buckled in the sun.

 

[MuswellMetro]

beebreeder,


I remember when I started, I shared the first takings with my mentor, from whom I purchased my first two WBCs. He was good enough to say nothing, but later I realised that he probably got a lot of sugar honey from that 'harvest'. Can't be sure but it did not granulate....

Regards, RAB

just set out the novices honey for our show,and i noticed how light a shade some of the honeys are compared to hives on the same site not fed spring sugar as a Nuc

The darkest one of the novice's honey is the one i mentor, why, probalbly becasue i stopped her feeding sugar as soon as the flow was on and surprisingly it is now the strongest of the novices hives on our training site

 

[oliver90owner]

beebreeder,

Mine have recently been hammered for bees, too. But they start early and expand quickly - just a shame the hives are, shall we say, 'static'.

Interesting about the beehaus. I was going to assess for distortion in the sunshine but it seems fairly conclusive, from reports, that this distortion problem is a fact.

I think they are definitely a hard surface hive, and it needs to be a level surface at that! Whether that would prevent the faults being noticed is another matter.

Mine leaked bees by the divider, But I could not be sure if it was placed absolutely correctly; others have also complained of dead bees behind the divider.

Mine was too tight between a couple of very busy hives to do much with it; I intend over-wintering a full colony from a (14 x 12) so expect to move things around as soon as the varroa treatment is concluded. I will do some checks as I move it. I thought it might be differential expansion (like the old bimetallic strip experiment in science), but I now think it is a far more basic fault - as in the choice of materials used or lack of rigidity designed into the structure. Anyway, wood rules, as far as I am concerned, so far.

Funny that, but I bet your wooden one is still the same shape as when new? So much for the new materials of construction. Simply another nail in the coffin for the plastic beetainer!

Regards, RAB

 

[oliver90owner]

MM,

Someone might quietly suggest some pH readings are taken to compare the honeys?

Time of year of the nuc may have some bearing, as might strength (early build-up) and not forgetting some nucs are proper small colonies and some are..., well,...something less than that - but I am sure your suspicions are well founded. In fact, possibly some of them should not even have got a harvest from their new colony?

OK, we cannot always simply compare hives from nucs, but it may be a good exercise to log a few details and make a thread for the new beeks if a definite trend can be seen.

Neverminding the 'sugar honey' problem, simply colony development comparisons might just wake up a few to the real world of beekeeping - not just reading a few books from some decidedly cautious authors. Not just the new beeks, either. Some mentors and quite a proportion of 'experienced' beeks too, by the accounts which come up on the forum.

We need to get across the need for beekeepers to think and assess, not simply doing things 'by the book', on the 'prescribed date', because 'someone else does it', etc.

Regards, RAB

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Interesting. In common with, I suspect, many newbeeks I was dead set for giving them a Christmas present of some fondant. It was in fact one of the very few things I was sure about.

Now, based on what beebreeder and RAB have said will definitely try and make a valid judgement based on the stores they have at cluster time

Feeding fondant unecessarily will likely have the effect of leaving no decent brooding space come the time for colony expansion. New beeks beware.

Hadn't thought of this either. I'd sort of assumed that the cluster, or even individual bees made their way up to the fondant and feed directly, without tranferring it to comb. I take it thats wrong!

Now it maybe that doesn't matter in my case as Im planning on a shook swarm to transfer them to 14x12 next spring, but its certainly worth considering.

 

[oliver90owner]

I take it thats wrong!

No.

BUT, it is used instead of stores. That means the 'space' is made above the crownboard, not in the frames. Unfortunately HM will need to lay one egg per cell early in the spring in the frames, not above the crownboard, and if there is little available space, her lay-rate will be seriously curtailed. It may quite easily be a brood cycle behind.

It is the brood cycle which accelerates stores usage in spring (larvae need a lot of food). So, no space to lay means slow brooding and less stores used up, so less extra space available for her otherwise accelerating lay-rate. On top of that more water would be required to use up that tempting fondant supplied by the nice beekeeper (larvae contain a lot of water, too).

When a super is put on in spring because 'Oh dear, the brood box is full' the bees then start to make space by moving food up as well as using for larval feed. Result is 'sugar honey' moved up and brooding restricted unecessarily until space can be made for egg laying. All ways around, a poor result for the beek because each new forager is a six week old egg! I certainly missed some of the OSR this last spring for the reason of a later start. The hives may have appeared to be strong but a lot of the bees were simply not old enough to be foragers.

Another 'knock-on' effect is an empty super too early in the season meaning it has to be heated - and without a large brood nest, which naturally provides a lot of spare thermal energy things will be slowed down.

All small effects, but they all add up and not necessarily as a simple summation either!

Hope that makes a few more think about the effects of beeks' actions on colonies!

Regards, RAB

 

[kazmcc]

It has made me think Rab. I am very new to bee keeping and will be doing things our mentors way for now. I must admit that when I heard about feeding bees sugar, and them storing it I was suprised and did wonder if the honey would be affected by it. I understand it is sometimes necessary to feed sugar, but hope to be able to tell if it is needed and not do it as a matter of course. This may be a while yet though.

Thanks DAF, it will be interesting to see what the bees have used after treatment. They haven't shown any signs of clustering, and although the weather has been a bit wet, they have been flying at every given chance and seem to still be bringing a lot back so I am hopeful. They seem to have been trudging along as usual despite our interference

 

[Juststarting]

So we are feeding 1 litre of heavy syrup every other day. 5 litres of syrup converts to a super frame of stores - 3lb. So it will take 10 days to fill one super frame. So a month at that rate will fill 3 super frames.

DAF - are you sure about your numbers - if you're feeding 2:1 syrup - 5ltrs of syrup will contain 10 kg of sugar (20lb+) stored at 80% sugar to water you'd have 12.5 kg of stores (25lb+) thats alot more frames!

If I am completely wrong - a strong possibility-could someone let me know as otherwise I will be severely underfeeding my bees.

 

[oliver90owner]

If I am completely wrong - a strong possibility-

Sorry to be bearer of bad news but yep, completely and utterly!

You could not possibly get 10kg of sugar in 5 litres of feed.

10kgs sugar plus 5 litres of water would give about 10 1/2 l of solution, so you need to roughly halve your figure.

Just count your bags of sugar given and you won't go far wrong.

Regards, RAB

 

[Juststarting]

RAB - thanks once again!

I think I've been using my own shorthand and assuming that applies to everyone else (obviously it does not). I had been thinking of 1 ltr of heavy syrup as being 1 ltr water and 2 kg sugar - I know this gives me more than a ltr of syrup but I fill up my 1 ltr feeder and then use the rest as a top up when I check level before I make up another batch.

So I can see that 5 ltr of "syrup" will not be 5 ltr water +10kg sugar and would be nearer 3 ltr water and 6 kg sugar? but would that still only give 1 super frame of (3lb) stores as suggested by DAF?

 

[oliver90owner]

DAF said 'super frame' or was it 'frame super'.

Either way, I think it was meant to be 'super' but so long back that I can't remember the maths. Probably out by a factor of two as well. National super - about 25 pounds (jars) of honey? So need to feed about 25 pounds of sugar. I like metric, well SI units, so much easier.

Regards, RAB

 

[Juststarting]

I'll stick to counting the bags - but i bought a 25 kg bag!

Seriously though its good to get a idea of the sort of quantites of sugar needed - alot more than I would have thought before I started keeping bees. Mine were ones that were low on stores at the end of August so will be keeping a close eye on this next year when I will be hoping to take some honey off them. They are filling up nicely now - just need them to cap it before it turns really cold - first frost on cars this morning.

 

[Skyhook]

Hope that makes a few more think about the effects of beeks' actions on colonies!

Regards, RAB

Indeed! Thanks RAB, plenty to think about.

 

[Der Alte Fritz]

RAB - thanks once again!

I think I've been using my own shorthand and assuming that applies to everyone else (obviously it does not). I had been thinking of 1 ltr of heavy syrup as being 1 ltr water and 2 kg sugar - I know this gives me more than a ltr of syrup but I fill up my 1 ltr feeder and then use the rest as a top up when I check level before I make up another batch.

So I can see that 5 ltr of "syrup" will not be 5 ltr water +10kg sugar and would be nearer 3 ltr water and 6 kg sugar? but would that still only give 1 super frame of (3lb) stores as suggested by DAF?

This number is a quote from a book. You are assuming that there is no cost to convert stored honey from sugar. Given that the bees have to partially digest the sugar to convert it to stored honey here some ideas of 'costs'

1. Production of wax in which to store stores
2. conversion process of sugar to honey, although enzyme driven this still costs energy
3. feeding of bees who are doing the work
4. feeding of other bees
5. wastage in the process

So your losses during stores production could be quite large even if you start with drawn comb.

 

[oliver90owner]

You (or they) have not considered that for autumn feeding of extra stores for winter:

Comb should not need drawing at this time (well not much of it).

Enzymes are a very efficient medium - a little enzyme goes a long, long way.

Feeding the bees - they are likely still foraging and would hopefully still be yielding a small surplus over their daily usage anyway - remember brooding will be decreasing, too (which is a large 'energy consuming' process).

Look at biggles' recent thread. 20 litres(?) taken down in less than a day. Those bees doing it, if not foraging because of the weather, were usefully employed for just a few hours filling the comb with reserves for winter

Wastage? Only if you spill it on the floor! Efficiency losses were included in the smaller numbered points surely?

They have no mention that sugar is a solid and sugar honey is 20% water. No mention that one can pussy-foot around and spend a month feeding them or it may be all taken down in about 3 days.

Lots of variables and feeding the rest of the bees is totally irrelevant - they were going to be fed anyway, extra stores or no extra stores!

I know I have ignored a few points but the above just goes to show that of your 5 points, some are not really that much to bother about.

Regards, RAB