Feeding

Curly green fingers · Oct 6, 2017

Hi folks I'm new to this. I inherited a national hive in may from my grandfather. I use to help him when I was about 10 years old. Perhaps not enough . so I've been learning about my bees all summer . I started feeding them syrup 5 weeks ago 2/1 because the brood had little stores only 2 frames and the one supper on top was only drawn out comb all summer. On inspection yesterday the brood box was full 8 frames full of stores and the supper had three capped and two uncapped frames I've put the supper under the brood and removed the QE on advice from a fellow beekeeper. Can I stop feeding now as they've had 25 kg of sugar .

Beefriendly · Oct 6, 2017

I think the answer is a resounding yes!

enrico · Oct 6, 2017

All I can say is I would stop
E

Curly green fingers · Oct 7, 2017

Cheers I suppose thinking about it I should of worked out how much syrup they would of needed by counting up what stores they had 5 weeks ago and feeding the required amount . I'll know for next year. This is my first season and I'm happy they have good stores for winter.

Beefriendly · Oct 7, 2017

Better too much than too little.
If there is too much stores, then next spring you may need to remove a few brood frames full of stores and replace with empty drawn, or undrawn to give queen room to lay.

For want of a better word · Oct 7, 2017

Beefriendly said:
Better too much than too little.
If there is too much stores, then next spring you may need to remove a few brood frames full of stores and replace with empty drawn, or undrawn to give queen room to lay.

but if you have voracious Mediterranean type bees do not worry... perhaps even give them a 2.5 kilo slab of fondant by the end of march? :hairpull:

Yeghes da

Curly green fingers · Oct 9, 2017

I think my bees are about 50/50 Italian's/ English black bee. I'll keep hefting the hive over the winter months. I live on high ground about 1500 ft . so I'm building a bee shed for them .