Feeding honey back to the bees

[Walrus]

Down here on the Costa del Fareham - if the weather is clement ....and it often is down here .. they are out and about collecting water and defecation flights. The benefits of local acclimatised stock are sometimes underestimated.

Nice county, I went to school just over the way in Lymington

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I’m a great fan of ivy stores.
........A lot of beekeepers say the bees can’t use it.

Another one of the great myths that abound in the world of beekeeping.

 

[Show me the honey]

Another one of the great myths that abound in the world of beekeeping.

Why would they collect something they couldn’t use? Makes no sense!

 

[Madge]

Why would they collect something they couldn’t use? Makes no sense!

It’s not that they collect nectar they can’t use - but, I think, the mono-floral nature of late forage after summer honey has been removed by the beekeeper that might cause problems.

In the wild, they probably won’t have their hive in a spot where their winter stores consist solely of heather or ivy.

 

[pargyle]

Nice county, I went to school just over the way in Lymington

Nestled in the lee of Portsdown Hill and sheltered to seaward by the Isle of Wight we are very lucky, predominantly south westerly winds so they tend to dissipate by the time they get to us .. a few miles North, West and to the East winters are much harsher. From arriving down here in 1967 from the arctic wastes of South Yorkshire I didn't see snow in Fareham (AT ALL !) until 2009. We've had a few winter snowfalls since then but very little that lasts.

We are very lucky and it's a lovely county in which to keep bees.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Why would they collect something they couldn’t use? Makes no sense!

It’s not that they collect nectar they can’t use - but, I think, the mono-floral nature of late forage after summer honey has been removed by the beekeeper that might cause problems.

Never caused a problem here, I remove the summer honey, then the heather, they go bonkers on the ivy as there's loads in the valley, in the spring they've cleared the lot.
Occasionally a really frugal colony will have stores left over which I remove and keep to feed nucs, sometimes it's a whole frame of ivy and the nucs clear it in no time.

 

[Erichalfbee]

 

[Ian123]

Heather and ivy are fantastic for bees and just as importantly an abundant source of late pollen I was always told heather was bad yet over many years of wintering nucs those on sites with access to those late sources come into spring 50% stronger on average than those sites not benefiting from those 2. Also bees will winter quite happily on sugar with no ill effect even if you remove all the stores in the hive when extracting.

 

[Walrus]

If anyone's interested I wrote a bit about this on my blog, in my usual meandering and probably irritating way. I found a recent research paper which compared feeding various sugar types to bees with a control. The control hives just had their own honey, but it would have been wildflower honey not honeydew or heather.

In short, they over-wintered best on their own honey, although those fed sucrose syrup did nearly as well, and in some cases better. The invert syrups promoted foraging compared to plain sucrose or the control.