Overwintered nuc feeding

[ultreen1]

I fed them 1l of syrup on Sunday, the weather isn't great! Will they need feeding again, if so how soon?

 

[Black Comb]

How many frames of food does the colony have already?

 

[ultreen1]

2 frames food, 3 frames of brood

 

[enrico]

Totally dependant on weather. Good weather and flying bees no more food, crap weather and they may need feeding every couple of days. Only top it up if they have used what was there.
E

 

[ultreen1]

Will it be ok to open them up with this cold weather? I suppose I only need to move the crown board a few inches to check the level of feed. When I fed them on Sunday we had robbing! Luckily I caught it straight away and stopped it!

 

[plunderer]

Hi ultreen,keep on feeding untill they stop takin it..
How are you feeding? frame feeder tub or ashcroft type,,

 

[ultreen1]

Frame feeder

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Hi ultreen,keep on feeding untill they stop takin it..

Plunderer - I bow to your greater experience, but wouldn't that leave the nuc in danger of being so full of feed there is nowhere to lay?

 

[plunderer]

The best way as you said is to just move the crown board back a bit & top up if nessessary,If nice and gentle the bees will not worry too much..

 

[ultreen1]

There is only one frame feeder, 6 nuc frames and 5 empty frames with foundation

 

[ultreen1]

Thank you plunderer, I did this on Sunday and they were fine! Hopefully they are nice and calm!

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

There is only one frame feeder, 6 nuc frames and 5 empty frames with foundation

Ah! Hadn't gathered that they were no longer in a nuc

 

[Bob Bee]

This feeding discussion does come up a lot, many people seem to say that you should feed until they stop taking it but all my experience suggests that it doesnt always pay to do this, especially in the spring.
I dont have scientific study evidence to support this but would suggest that two full frames of food would easily support a full colony, let alone a nuke, for at least a couple of weeks even if the weather was poor, allowing space to increase brood and build the colony.
Where do we get this "they know when to stop" theory from ?.

 

[Black Comb]

In this situation it appears there are 2 objectives :-

1. To stop them starving if weather inclement for a couple of weeks. 2 frames of stores should be enough for that.

2. To encourage them to draw out foundation and expand. In which case continue to feed 1:1.

Perhaps you might consider leaving only 2 frames of foundation and dummying them down, gradually adding more frames of foundation as the others are drawn.
This way they have only the optimal space to heat for the size of colony.

 

[ultreen1]

Thank you for all your comments!

 

[drstitson]

"There is only one frame feeder, 6 nuc frames and 5 empty frames with foundation"

That's not how you install a nuc in a hive (especially in weather like this).

you should only add 1-2 frames of foundation at a time, dummying down the empty space, and only add more as needed.

it's a big shock for X bees to suddenly have to deal with twice the size of home and be expected to thrive, draw comb etc etc.

 

[itma]

...
Perhaps you might consider leaving only 2 frames of foundation and dummying them down, gradually adding more frames of foundation as the others are drawn.
This way they have only the optimal space to heat for the size of colony.

Just exactly how much empty drawn comb have they got?

HMQ needs space to lay in. Otherwise, they'll be swarming.

She can't lay on foundation.
They need warm weather to draw comb (and as warm, ie, insulated, not empty, not full of foundation) a hive as possible.
They won't draw faster, if you give them more foundation than they can handle.

If they have 2 pretty full frames of stores, they are NOT about to starve, not for several weeks anyway.
To build the nuc, you need more bees - and that means more brood, rather than excess food.

So, I'd suggest that there is no immediate need to feed - and that the bees simply storing extra syrup would risk cramping the queen, at best slowing the build-up of bees, at worst provoking a swarm.

Patience.

 

[drstitson]

if not in a poly hive i'd fill any dead space with blocks of kingspan or similar and place a decent chunk on the crownboard too.

 

[ultreen1]

Ok, so I need to dummy down.

 

[Finman]

Hi ultreen,keep on feeding untill they stop takin it..

hey...it is spring now. Not winter feeding.
April....

Like Dritson says, restrict the space. In polyboxes too. Too hard job to nuc to heat universum.