How much honey to leave?

[daveincrewe]

I bet this is asked a dozen times a year, but I'm struggling to find answers on the internet.

Given an average colony size is a full super of honey per brood box a reasonable amount to leave the bees (additional feeding if required aside). Is it too much, to little or about right?

Cheers

Dave

 

[JWF]

It's entirely up to you! Remove all the supers and feed feed feed, or leave some honey and feed a bit less.

As is often pointed out on here - the honey is worth £6/lb and the sugar about £0.25/lb.

The most important thing is making sure they have plenty of food as they get ready for winter.

 

[B+.]

I bet this is asked a dozen times a year, but I'm struggling to find answers on the internet.

Given an average colony size is a full super of honey per brood box a reasonable amount to leave the bees (additional feeding if required aside). Is it too much, to little or about right?

It isn't just a matter of how much food they have but how old the worker bees are when they go into winter.
The workers will feed and care for the queen over winter and tend the early brood in spring. However, they can't do that if they are already worn out by the time winter arrives. So, it is important to continue supplying sugar syrup to feed the colony and keep the queen in egg-laying condition for as long as possible.
Remember: it takes 21 days for an egg to mature into an adult worker so, the more workers she has going into winter, the better chance they have of surviving.
Another important point is that the colony is only able to process sugar syrup up to a certain point. The air becomes very damp in late September/early October so it becomes more difficult for them the evaporate the moisture. You should aim to have your colonies fed by this point.
How much food they need is difficult to answer. Some colonies eat more than others and a lot depends on how long the winter is, but, an often quoted figure is 20 kg. This is only a guide though.

 

[Erichalfbee]

As B+
The 20Kg is a good guide. In my narrow experience bees eat less in poly over winter and I have to remove store frames to allow Spring expansion. It's a good idea to have some empty drawn brood frames in the freezer

 

[B+.]

bees eat less in poly over winter and I have to remove store frames to allow Spring expansion

It is far better to have to do this than to have to run around placing blocks of fondant on the top as emergency food in spring. The best food for bees is what they have in the combs. Too many people skimp on food in Autumn and are in a panic in March

 

[Swarm]

The way the weather is, it's a case of how much honey will be left.

 

[psafloyd]

Also worth considering what honey is worth to the bees over winter. Some of us prefer not to feed them sugar. It's your call.

It's entirely up to you! Remove all the supers and feed feed feed, or leave some honey and feed a bit less.

As is often pointed out on here - the honey is worth £6/lb and the sugar about £0.25/lb.

The most important thing is making sure they have plenty of food as they get ready for winter.

 

[Eyeman]

it is far better to have to do this than to have to run around placing blocks of fondant on the top as emergency food in spring. The best food for bees is what they have in the combs. Too many people skimp on food in autumn and are in a panic in march

Plan again is to weigh my main colonies again. I'm lucky with late season balsam & ivy so haven't fed sugar syrup for several years. Easy to slap a piece of fondant on in late winter / early spring if needed. If you run with top insulation in a wooden hive then bees will be under the crown board right under the fondant.

 

[PaulCarroll]

Interesting point made by Swarm. I live in the SE and this year all my colonies seem to have struggled to create stores in the brood chamber and apart from one colony, looks like honey yield is likely to be disappointing. Really odd as June was so warm, but possibly too hot too soon as ready forage not available. As always with bees, both intriguing and frustrating!!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[enrico]

No rain equals little nectar

 

[For want of a better word]

It is far better to have to do this than to have to run around placing blocks of fondant on the top as emergency food in spring. The best food for bees is what they have in the combs. Too many people skimp on food in Autumn and are in a panic in March

I will feed about 18 liters of INVERT per colony of the yellow stripie bees and around 10 to the Native black bees... as they seem to be a lot more conservative and frugal with their stores than their Italian cousins.
If I have stores left in Spring this is a bonus as it is used for queen rearing later.

I do not extract from brood frames, and anything left in Spring in the Brood 1/2 boxes gets "nadiered" with a couple of strips of wood to make an eke, so the bees clear it. I also add thymol ( as per Hivemakers solution with Lechethin) to the invert.

No brainier to me!!

Yeghes da

 

[user 6228]

honey is winter fuel for bees. So how much fuel they need is down to how cold and exposed the site is and how much insulation you provide. The 24Kg from the BBKA represents a uninsulated, matchstick ventilated wooden hive in an exposed location in the UK . A sheltered PIR hive could run on a 1/10th of that.

 

[B+.]

how much fuel they need is down to how cold and exposed the site is and how much insulation you provide

Yes. The environment is one thing, but, there is also a biological component. Some bees are just naturally more/less adapted to the conditions and consume more/less food because of it. It's not so obvious when you only have a few hives in an area, but, when you have lots of related queens in the same area, you begin to notice these things.

 

[Swarm]

The supers were stacked, things were looking up but then July was a washout with August following suit.

 

[Erichalfbee]

The supers were stacked, things were looking up but then July was a washout with August following suit.

Indeed.
Somebody here asked how to get God to have a laugh and the answer was to tell him your plans. Very apt!

 

[Swarm]

Yep, don't weigh your honey til it's in the extractor. I've just come home from feeding nucs in the pouring rain.

 

[Zante]

Yep, don't weigh your honey til it's in the extractor. I've just come home from feeding nucs in the pouring rain.

I don't suppose you could send some of that rain down here?
Haven't seen any rain since April unless you consider a light shower once.

 

[ShinySideUp]

On the subject of winter feeding with honey, I've nadir'd a super because I made a mistake and treated with Apiguard while leaving the super on (tainted honey). My worry is that the queen will start to lay in the nadir and I'll end up with a brood and a half with a honey super at the bottom. My thought was the bees would move the honey up into the 14 x 12 and I didn't think about the queen moving down. I'm not sure how to get the nadir out now as it's full of bees, possibly the queen, and a fair bit of honey.

Leave it until February then whip it out perhaps?

 

[Gilberdyke John]

On the subject of winter feeding with honey, I've nadir'd a super because I made a mistake and treated with Apiguard while leaving the super on (tainted honey). My worry is that the queen will start to lay in the nadir and I'll end up with a brood and a half with a honey super at the bottom. My thought was the bees would move the honey up into the 14 x 12 and I didn't think about the queen moving down. I'm not sure how to get the nadir out now as it's full of bees, possibly the queen, and a fair bit of honey.

Leave it until February then whip it out perhaps?

Answered your own question?

 

[madasafish]

I nadir supers with honey.
Never had the queen laying downwards...

I weigh hives pre and post winter. Average consumption around 15kg