New nucleus...urgent help please!

[Rob Morgan]

Can anyone help with some advice please. I have a hive with new nucleus installed in June this year (Buckfast bees) I have been feeding with sugar syrup basically since June because there has not been much around in terms of nectar flow and they continued to take sugar syrup every few weeks.
The colony is healthy with good laying pattern and has expanded well and I put a super on in late July to give them a bit more room as they had filled up the brood box with new brood and what I thought was honey.
My thinking was not to take any honey in their first year and to let them build up their resources to overwinter. Hive inspections during August showed the super was almost full and I was suspicious that they were directly taking the sugar syrup and directly storing it. It was liquid at the is point and I thought I could leave the super on over they winter for the bees to feed on.
However, I have been unable to inspect for several weeks and a few days ago discovered the super is full and that the liquid sugar syrup/honey has now solidified to a candy/fondant state.
Can anyone put my mind at rest or advise if this is normal/acceptable for them to break down and digest as food over the winter? If not any advice as to what I can do. Thanks.

 

[Finman]

Syrup does not crystallize in combs. It is liquid still in spring. Honey patches are hard.
You colony has foraged real honey.

Genuine honey crystallizes during autumn when hive becomes colder.

Can anyone put into your mind that bees can eate hard honey? .. May be...
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[Hebeegeebee]

Ivy is flowering in my part of the world and it possibly is in yours too. Ivy honey sets hard quite quickly. Never had a problem with bees consuming it.

 

[sherwood]

Almost certainly ivy nectar which unfortunately sets like concrete they will consume it over winter but will involve them in extra water flights to dilute and liquify set honey

 

[oliver90owner]

I've never noticed any difference re 'water flights'. The honey water content is the same for set honey as for liquid. The bees are not consuming it very quickly, like trying to feed brood, in the colder periods. My bees often over-winter on ivy honey, often needing frames of stores removing in spring to make extra room for brooding.

 

[Finman]

Almost certainly ivy nectar which unfortunately sets like concrete they will consume it over winter but will involve them in extra water flights to dilute and liquify set honey

If bees do water flights, it makes nothing there. They get it all the time, because you do not have snow there .

My bees cannot come out to pick drinking water during 5 months.
You can conclude, that they do not need it.
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.

 

[Finman]

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research article

Unusually Severe Granulation of Winter Stores Caused by Nectar from Ivy, Hedera Helix, in Ireland

A. R. Greenway, S. P. Greenwood, V. J. Rhenius & J. Simpson

Pages 63-68 | Received 13 Jan 1975



But I did not find any sings of researching. Only opinions.

It was reported "severely granulated ivy honey"

" As dry as sugar powder"

That is impossible. Even sugar powder sucks water from air.

Has anyone measured the water contert of ivy concrete? I do not find it from Internet. But I believe that it like other honey's, nearly 20%, because weathers are cold.

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[maddydog]

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research article

Unusually Severe Granulation of Winter Stores Caused by Nectar from Ivy, Hedera Helix, in Ireland

.

Heh, easily amused in 1975.

Pretty sure if you put a bag of Tate and Lyle's finest in your average British hive it wouldn't be bone dry come spring. Otherwise why would so many folk complain about mould on their frames?
Every year my colonies over winter on a mix of ivy and sugar syrup. I often have to remove solid frames in the spring to make room. Said frames then become useful stores to set up nucs, never been a problem

 

[Rob Morgan]

Thanks you everyone for your replies and advice. I'll leave the super on over winter and feel reassured they'll be able to use it.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Don't forget to remove the queen excluder!

 

[Heather]

I tend to put the super under the brood box too, as they will work their way up and be in the brood box in Spring, leaving a nearly empty super.

In our Assoc, I threaten anyone leaving a queen excluder in with the community job of cutting apiary grass with nail scissors! seems to remind them.
Beginners.. if your QE has a wooden surround, paint the wood yellow on one side to remind you of its presence.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

paint the wood yellow on one side to remind you of its presence.

Four!

 

[Heather]

So you have a couple of gormless ones too...OK, four sides...and we have one that flashing lights wouldn't go amiss.
But have known experience keepers that miss one occasionally. Not hard to do when doing many hives and a couple of them are being 'grumpy'. makes one hasty sometimes

 

[oliver90owner]

under the brood box too, as they will work their way up and be in the brood box in Spring, leaving a nearly empty super.

Just hope they do not need that bit left in the bottom box. In those circumstances it would have been far better to have left it where the bees put it!