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New Bee
Joined
Jan 2, 2013
Messages
58
Reaction score
4
Location
nottinghamshire
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
4
Had 3 quite busy hives and they still are but the supers are empty so obviously there is a lack of flow at the moment . We have hives in woodland out in the countryside not many gardens near .

So i was thinking of maybe feeding to get them by until the flow comes back on although they were bringing in some black pollen and a bit of yellow .Plenty of bees coming and going but not much pollen coming in .

If i have plenty of fondant there is nothing wrong in feeding this now instead of syrup is there ? .

Thanks

Alan
 
Had 3 quite busy hives and they still are but the supers are empty so obviously there is a lack of flow at the moment . We have hives in woodland out in the countryside not many gardens near .

So i was thinking of maybe feeding to get them by until the flow comes back on although they were bringing in some black pollen and a bit of yellow .Plenty of bees coming and going but not much pollen coming in .

If i have plenty of fondant there is nothing wrong in feeding this now instead of syrup is there ? .

Thanks

Alan
Agree with JBM
You really need to look in the brood
Flow is just starting slowly here but the gap has been profound. All my broods are empty and supers nearly so. I've had to juggle super frames between colonies to avoid feeding.
Today I spotted a lot of bees on the ground in front of one hive.....all drones getting kicked out as there is little food. Queen stopped laying
 
Mighty relieved as today the hives had the first tentative signs that the flow has started. Some have been running on fumes for the last week or so. I’ve also raided supers to feed colonies rather than adding syrup or fondant.
 
It's really wierd...bees starving in June, I'd expect enough from the spring we had to see them through ... is it the climate that is changing and bringing crops out of line with the seasons or just the changeable weather reducing their ability to build up stores ?

My bees are bringing something in down here - the smell of honey ripening in the apiary tonight was overpowering ... It's funny really, I never get the massive flows that most people get from OSR, lime, heather, bramble, balsam etc. it's just fairly constant all season from March through to the ivy in November - just steady I'd call it.

Obviously, it's very mixed forage where I am on the edge of town with allotments, domestic gardens, parks, trees, fields not far away, railway bankings and some hedgerows. I don't normally see much of a June gap. Most of them have got one well capped super and filling another - some are well into two and working on a third. Last time I looked there were honey arcs over the top of the brood in most boxes as well.

It's awful having to feed bees at this time of the year ... I just wonder what would happen if beekeepers were not there to assist ? Would we be looking at huge colony losses or would they just hunker down and get by ?
 
Obviously, it's very mixed forage where I am on the edge of town with allotments, domestic gardens, parks,

It's awful having to feed bees at this time of the year ... I just wonder what would happen if beekeepers were not there to assist ? Would we be looking at huge colony losses or would they just hunker down and get by ?

If we didn’t have beekeepers we wouldn’t have fancy bees and likely they would hunker down.
I’ve been feeding some in the apiary by moving super frames but the swarm on the rooftop has lots of honey and pollen in the brood box
 
If we didn’t have beekeepers we wouldn’t have fancy bees and likely they would hunker down.
I’ve been feeding some in the apiary by moving super frames but the swarm on the rooftop has lots of honey and pollen in the brood box
That perhaps tells is something ? 🤔
 
It's really wierd...bees starving in June, I'd expect enough from the spring we had to see them through ... is it the climate that is changing and bringing crops out of line with the seasons or just the changeable weather reducing their ability to build up stores ?

My bees are bringing something in down here - the smell of honey ripening in the apiary tonight was overpowering ... It's funny really, I never get the massive flows that most people get from OSR, lime, heather, bramble, balsam etc. it's just fairly constant all season from March through to the ivy in November - just steady I'd call it.

Obviously, it's very mixed forage where I am on the edge of town with allotments, domestic gardens, parks, trees, fields not far away, railway bankings and some hedgerows. I don't normally see much of a June gap. Most of them have got one well capped super and filling another - some are well into two and working on a third. Last time I looked there were honey arcs over the top of the brood in most boxes as well.

It's awful having to feed bees at this time of the year ... I just wonder what would happen if beekeepers were not there to assist ? Would we be looking at huge colony losses or would they just hunker down and get by ?
Most of my established hives are in small villages and towns so can get by on the gardens etc but what I've noticed this year is that the colonies with nuced queens that I took off earlier in the year didn't have the workforce to build stores and they are the ones that are suffering in the gap.
 
That perhaps tells is something ? 🤔
Yes as Dani says it is a big business now and the concentration of hives per km2 can be staggering in some areas compared to what would happen without human intervention. Size of managed colonies are probably 3-4 times bigger than 'wild ones' (using the term loosely) so consumption is 4 fold as well.
 
It's really wierd...bees starving in June, I'd expect enough from the spring we had to see them through ... is it the climate that is changing and bringing crops out of line with the seasons or just the changeable weather reducing their ability to build up stores ?
been happening most years since I've been keeping bees, so no great difference really just this year with a not so great weather system has accelerated things a bit
If we didn’t have beekeepers we wouldn’t have fancy bees and likely they would hunker down.
Nothing 'fancy' about my bees, in fact the ones who have suffered worse are the more pure AMM types
 

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