Feeding

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Rachelw

New Bee
Joined
Jul 6, 2010
Messages
28
Reaction score
0
Location
Wakefield
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
1 colony from last year and 1 swarm I caught in May
Hello All:seeya:

This my first post so please be gentle with me! I have done a course and read lots of books and articles, but I would welcome the beneifit of your experience. So thank you in advance.

I am a new beekeeper - I acquired my bees last Saturday. They were a six frame nucleus and are now in my national hive. I have left them to settle in and have resisted the temptation to open them up. I have watched the comings and goings and have seen pollen being taken in. I fed them with two litres of sugar syrup on Saturday and today (Wednesday) was surprised to see they had taken it all. I have replaced it but my worry is the week after next I go on holiday for two weeks and will not be able to feed them. Will they still be taking syrup at the same rate? Will they manage without the syrup being topped up or do I need to find a friendly local beek to feed them?

Hope this is not too daft a question

Rachel:nature-smiley-013:
 
Hello All:seeya:

This my first post so please be gentle with me! I have done a course and read lots of books and articles, but I would welcome the beneifit of your experience. So thank you in advance.

I am a new beekeeper - I acquired my bees last Saturday. They were a six frame nucleus and are now in my national hive. I have left them to settle in and have resisted the temptation to open them up. I have watched the comings and goings and have seen pollen being taken in. I fed them with two litres of sugar syrup on Saturday and today (Wednesday) was surprised to see they had taken it all. I have replaced it but my worry is the week after next I go on holiday for two weeks and will not be able to feed them. Will they still be taking syrup at the same rate? Will they manage without the syrup being topped up or do I need to find a friendly local beek to feed them?

Hope this is not too daft a question

Rachel:nature-smiley-013:

first welcome, ask any questions

i do not feed late Nuc at all, if the forage is ok, and the weather fine,but i assume its been raining so feeding is fine in those ocndition

your Bees will find their own forage this time of year, so long as its not raining so i think you'll get away with it
 
Welcome to the forums Rachelw

Enjoy your holiday your colony should be fine, if any thing keep the entrance to a narrow slot in case of robbing or wasps. We are in the summer nectar flow period so your colony should be more than capable of finding their own nectar and continue to build up from now on after the 4 litres you've given them.
bee-smillie
 
My question would be:Why are you feeding them? Is it because they are short of stores or just so they can fill up all the available laying space the queen might need for colony expansion. If the answer is the latter, then stop feeding them.

You would be better monitoring their expansion and giving extra frames as and when required, by moving a dummy board along as required. Not sure what the weather is like that far north, but even if warm at night, having less foundation to go at might be a little less daunting for the bees.

Was this 2l or 4l in total and what was the ratio of sugar to water?

Remember a nuc should be a self contained colony - just a small one.
Watch out for wasps attacks - that may be your biggest problem at this time of the year, especially if you are away on holiday shortly. Reduce the entrance to a defendable size if you notice any wasps bothering the colony if it is wide open at present.

Regards, RAB
 
Hi Rachel,
Welcome to the Forum. I am a relative newbee too, but I don't think you'll need to keep feeding the bees. The flow is still quite strong and you have seen your bees bringing it in, so after they have finished your syrup they should have had more than enough.

There is something called honey block, which is where the bees fill all the space with the syrup from the feeder, and the queen has nowhere to lay (which makes them all miserable) - so don't go overboard. If you have a friendly local beek you should check with them too, after all I haven't been doing this long either.

Anyway welcome and good-luck!
 
Hi Rachel,
Welcome to the Forum. I am a relative newbee too, but I don't think you'll need to keep feeding the bees. The flow is still quite strong and you have seen your bees bringing it in, so after they have finished your syrup they should have had more than enough.

There is something called honey block, which is where the bees fill all the space with the syrup from the feeder, and the queen has nowhere to lay (which makes them all miserable) - so don't go overboard. If you have a friendly local beek you should check with them too, after all I haven't been doing this long either.

Anyway welcome and good-luck!


yes Queen59, is right, all the folklaw says feed feed feed, but you can get into a catch 22 situation...too few young Bees to draw wax to make cells, so they fil the brood with syrup as no storgae cells, this means less cells for queen to lay in so less young bees, so less Wax prodiuced..you end up with no cells for queen + lots of food=swarming

so unless its really raining for more than a few days, my advice would not be to feed this time of year ( well perhaps one feed...to settle id ok, but last time i did that i found un capped QC and royal jelly i them the following inspection)
 
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Thank you for your replies - I am amazed at how quick!

I have been giving them 1:1 sugar syrup as I was advised to do so. I will stop feeding them now.

Tomorrow I am going to do my first inspection. The Local Bee Inspector has kindly offered to do this with me - so hopefully he will be able to tell me if I am on the right lines.

Thanks again - I'm sure I'll be back with more questions!

Rachel:)
 
The Local Bee Inspector has kindly offered to do this with me - so hopefully he will be able to tell me if I am on the right lines.

Rachel:)

Ask him lots of questions as I'm sure he will be delighted to answer them which will give you some confidence on future inspections and how to manage the colony through into the winter.
 
Hi Rachel, I'm new here too. We have bees as part of a project at my childrens school, but we are doing it a wonky way around. We have been given a taster session, then our tutor brought the bees yesterday and he will walk us through the first year and teach us that way. We are very lucky as we get 1 to 1 tutorage :) Anyway, welcome, I was just reading the replies you have got and it raises a question for me, you will probably know this already.

What is a dummy board?

Karen
 
Hi and welcome to the mad house.
I would feed again as your bees have come from a Nuc of six frames into a National of 11 frames so will need help building out from the foundation into the comb, as for going on hols; go and enjoy yourself as mentioned before the bees should bee OK. By the way please ensure you have a queen that is in lay with plenty of eggs before you jet off somewhere.

Enjoy this fabulous hobby of beekeeping.

Mo
 
As you have the Bee inspector comming ask him if you should feed....usual two beekeeper..three answer problem

in the end they are your bees, and they do their own thing
 

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