How long to feed?

[LJH]

I know it's late in the year, but I had a swarm arrive in a home made bait hive I had in a tree in my garden last week during the nice weather we had (has 7 national brood frames in it). Only one drawn frame in it before they came. Moved it down from the tree and 3 ft across to the corner of my garden, and sat in on top of the hive it will be going in. Weather been great here since. Feeding since day three, so they've had about 2 litres of syrup over past 3 days. They're taking all the syrup which is on a plastic bottle type feeder directly at the front of the hive (outside). Loads of bees coming back covered in white stuff, assuming balsam? My question is how long to keep feeding them? Shall I just judge it off how much comb is drawn when I look in it at the weekend? How much syrup on average does a swarm need at this time of year? Seems like forage is good around here for the moment looking at the amount of white bees coming back.
I'd post a video I took with my phone when the swarm arrived but not sure how to upload it...
Thanks in advance.

 

[Finman]

.
10 langstroth foundations need 6 kg sugar that bees draw combs ready.

But bees draw combs ready if cells are full.

Reduce the hive to 7 frame size with dummy board.

4 kg sugar would be good. When brood area grows, bees move sugar to sidemost frames and into upper parts. It depends, how much they get nectar from nature. Give 30% syrup.Then bees draw deeper cells.

Judge by drawed combs, how much they draw within a week.

 

[LJH]

Thank you finman.

 

[Etton]

Sorry to be thick, but can you define 30% please Finman?

 

[Finman]

Sorry to be thick, but can you define 30% please Finman?

One 1 kg sugar into 2 litres water, .. About
.

 

[oliver90owner]

Do look at their stores. Why feed if there is more than adequate income? All they will do is store it (after building sufficient cells for brooding and storage).A late swarm will, most likely, need a good amount of feeding later, but what it really needs, currently, is more bees.

 

[BeeJayBee]

Feeding since day three, so they've had about 2 litres of syrup over past 3 days. They're taking all the syrup which is on a plastic bottle type feeder directly at the front of the hive (outside).

It really isn't a good idea to use this type of feeder, not unless you want to feed all the bees in your area. If you've registered on Beebase you'll know how many apiaries are nearby!

Best to use a Miller-type or rapid feeder that stays inside the hive where the colony can access the syrup without any competition. During warmer weather they will probably also use the syrup overnight, which they can't do if they have to fly somewhere to get it.

 

[Eyeman]

After honey came off and MAQS treatment went on start of September the extended Balsam flow has filled all 14x12,s and double nats to capacity. All colonies had a super left on as I ran out of time to do any further extraction.
No feeding needed this year just the 2L of thymolated syrup per colony.
Anyone else noticed this year has had the best late summer / Autumn flow for many a year.