Is there plenty time to feed the bees

[Liam C Ryan]

Hi to the Irish forum members, is there still time to feed the bees or has keepers stopped now.
Liam C
Tipp

 

[burren]

no, might be wise to give a quick feed before apiguard treating.

 

[oliver90owner]

Hi to the Irish forum members

Neither Irish or Ireland based, but for all those others that may read this thread, bees will take feed until it is too cold, if they need it. How long that piece of string may be is a pure guess. However, the later it gets, the more likely it is that any new predictions will be correct. Clustered bees do not take feed down for storage. Doubtless there will be many who fewed their bees during the winter (later) months. I am not generally one of those.

 

[Teemore]

I'm feeding my own bees and 17 or so colonies for a friend who is out of commission after an operation: most are guzzling down thymolated syrup. The weather improved with us over the last day and my father reported that the bees were very busy bringing in a lot of pollen: if your bees are still bringing in pollen, they will be able to take down feed. If they have a good amount of their own (honey) stores they may be very slow to take advantage of any syrup you offer them and as RAB pointed out, they will take feed (syrup) until it is too cold.

 

[Arfermo]

no, might be wise to give a quick feed before apiguard treating.

It is almost too late now for Apiguard to be utilised to best effect. Should have been started at end of August, not beginning of October when it might put queen off lay at a critical time for potential long living worker bees!!!!

When Apiguard is finished, that is the normal time to start feeding heavy syrup (Ambrosia is perfect for this if one can afford/wants to splash out) - small quantity to begin building up amount as queen reduces laying. They will stop taking it when they have enough for their needs.

 

[Liam C Ryan]

Would it be a good rule of thumb to feed away until the bees stop taking it down .

 

[snoop]

How many frames of stores do they have & how many frames of brood???

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Would it be a good rule of thumb to feed away until the bees stop taking it down .

You need to know what's going on in the hive to be sure.

 

[enrico]

It also depends what you are feeding them. The bees still need to evaporate excess water off syrup to be able to cap it. When it gets cold this might not happen. It is not unheard of for the syrup to go mouldy in the frames because of the water and it being uncapped. However starvation is worse so.......I would feed this year but remember to feed earlier next year! Also depends on balsam/ivy flow
E

 

[itma]

Hi to the Irish forum members, is there still time to feed the bees or has keepers stopped now.
Liam C
Tipp

Irrespective of local conditions, the first thing to do is to establish whether or not feeding is required.
That can be done firstly by visual inspection.
Having seen what the stores level is, learn what that feels like to 'heft' - or give yourself a means of attaching a luggage scale and measure the weight of what you've seen.
You should aim for 20kg/40lb of stored honey (beyond the weight of the hive and frames). Thats a single-brood national pretty much stuffed full.

If you *need* to feed, then its strong syrup (or better Ambrosia-style strong invert syrup - less water to remove and non-fermenting, never mind the invert sugars), but when the bees lose interest in it because it's too cold, if you are still light then it has to be fondant.
Hopefully you have plenty ivy nearby and your weather is allowing the bees to harvest it for themselves - saving you the cost of some sugar/syrup.

No bad thing to have a see-through crown board so you can visually check during winter without fully opening the hive.

 

[greengumbo]

Irrespective of local conditions, the first thing to do is to establish whether or not feeding is required.
That can be done firstly by visual inspection.
Having seen what the stores level is, learn what that feels like to 'heft' - or give yourself a means of attaching a luggage scale and measure the weight of what you've seen.
You should aim for 20kg/40lb of stored honey (beyond the weight of the hive and frames). Thats a single-brood national pretty much stuffed full.

If you *need* to feed, then its strong syrup (or better Ambrosia-style strong invert syrup - less water to remove and non-fermenting, never mind the invert sugars), but when the bees lose interest in it because it's too cold, if you are still light then it has to be fondant.
Hopefully you have plenty ivy nearby and your weather is allowing the bees to harvest it for themselves - saving you the cost of some sugar/syrup.

No bad thing to have a see-through crown board so you can visually check during winter without fully opening the hive.

Hey - ivy is not even flowering round ours yet. Bees still active on sunny days bringing in some kind of pollen (light yellow and sometimes dark orange ?). Got my api life var on and they are not taking down any of the thymolated syrup yet.

I will do a proper assessment of stores at the weekend but the queen was still laying like mad last week and so maybe they are not storing due to lack of space. How many stores would roughly 5-6 frames of bees on langstroth jumbo frames need ? I have some fondant ready for the winter in case.

 

[itma]

... How many stores would roughly 5-6 frames of bees on langstroth jumbo frames need ?

The way I see it, in a mild winter a small colony won't consume as much as a big colony, but both could consume more than in a normally-cold UK winter -- because the bees would be spending less time in an energy-efficient cluster, and the consumption would just vary with the number of bees.
However, once it gets cold enough to cluster, they will be closer to the same consumption -- because the small cluster is less efficient than the big cluster (the small one has more outside surface per unit volume, or per bee - so consumes more stores per bee).

Therefore I personally would hope that a 2/3 size colony would have just as much stores (certainly more than 2/3 the stores) expected for a full colony.

 

[greengumbo]

The way I see it, in a mild winter a small colony won't consume as much as a big colony, but both could consume more than in a normally-cold UK winter -- because the bees would be spending less time in an energy-efficient cluster, and the consumption would just vary with the number of bees.
However, once it gets cold enough to cluster, they will be closer to the same consumption -- because the small cluster is less efficient than the big cluster (the small one has more outside surface per unit volume, or per bee - so consumes more stores per bee).

Therefore I personally would hope that a 2/3 size colony would have just as much stores (certainly more than 2/3 the stores) expected for a full colony.

 

[Tdf]

im still feeding atm should be finished in next 10days, its always safe to give them as much as they will take

 

[peteinwilts]

I am one of those late feeders... I do not start in anger until the 2nd half of October.
I am in the shadow of Lynham air force base who collected acurate weather figures and trends over the last 40 years.
Average daytime figures do not fall below 10 degrees C until early-mid November.

I use thymolised syrup, so have no problem with mould or fermentation.

I performed an emergency feed a couple of weeks ago, but did not feed too much as my bees still had plenty of brood (my biggest still had 7 full frames of 14x12 brood). This is the first year that I have had to feed so early (only out of 4 years!).

I am sure one year the weather will catch me out. If that happens fondant will go on instead of syrup.

There are beekeepers from all over the country and abroard who have different climates and microclimates. They may have also been taught different things.
I have a sense of confidence of my system because it has worked over the last four years, but found out my local BI also follows the same feeding pattern as I do.

My advice is not to say when to feed, but find information about your localised climate and find what works for you.

 

[REDWOOD]

Simple answer no, feeding mine at the moment and they are still on the ivy. temps here still reaching 15 degrees