Winter feeding

[monarda]

Being still wet behind the ears, I have yet to master the art of "hefting" , so I weigh my hives. My question is , at what weight of stores should I be thinking about feeding? Im on brood and half, went into winter 50lb + of stores but am now down to about 20lb on each of my three hives. Thank you for your thoughts.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I feed at around 10 remaining. Once they have got down to that weight I weigh weekly

 

[monarda]

I feed at around 10 remaining. Once they have got down to that weight I weigh weekly

Cheers for info Dani

 

[Amari]

Being still wet behind the ears, I have yet to master the art of "hefting" , so I weigh my hives. My question is , at what weight of stores should I be thinking about feeding? Im on brood and half, went into winter 50lb + of stores but am now down to about 20lb on each of my three hives. Thank you for your thoughts.

I don't weigh so I shouldn't comment, but 30 lbs consumption by end of January seems a lot. I fed 12.5 kg syrup to each of my hives mid September and most are still hefting 'heavy'. There's lots of ivy around so maybe my bees topped themselves up.

 

[drex]

As per Amari, 30 lbs is a lot for them to have got through at this point in the season, however we haven't really had cold weather. Some bees do eat a lot. From now on the brood rearing is ramping up, so food consumption will increase dramatically now. Most hives starve out in Jan or Feb rather than at other times.

 

[ismail akyüz]

ben kış mevsiminde hiç beşlemiyorum

 

[Spikedog]

For the non- Turkish aware keepers:

"I do not feed at all in the winter season"

 

[Amari]

ben kış mevsiminde hiç beşlemiyorum

Ah, I've had several off-the-beaten-track holidays in Turkey, starting in 1962. One of the delights was meeting groups of itinerant beekeepers who do all their honey processing in a tent. Communication difficulties meant I could never understand why most of their hives were single brood box without supers.
Their main product was çam bali (actually no dot over the i, pronounced 'u') = pine honey = 'nectar' from aphid rear-abdomen secretions rather than floral nectar. Dark honey complete with bees' legs etc. Lovely taste!