Two new hives started late this year. Missed most of the flow and don't even have a deep filled on either hives. Multiple empty frames in each hive. Been feeding 1/1 sugar syrup. Is there something better? Have noticed that pollen isn't coming back much any more.
Any suggestions or ideas?
Thanks...Matthew
New hives on new equipment? Give it time. There is still a lot of summer left.
Feed, Feed, Feed!! If they are still weak at the end of the summer you may need to combine for the winter and then split next spring. Better to have one strong hive than two weak ones in my opinion!! I actually just combine a package I installed this spring with stronger swarms for that very reason. Last year I fed for four months and they filled the brood box but I never could get them to fill out a super completely. They did not make it!!
If there are bee yards in your area, do not feed on or in your hives when the nectar flow stops. No pollen into my hives for over two weeks on new hives. I fed with a top feeder, totally covered and robbing started - heck of a thing to stop once it starts. I also liked honey-b-healthy, but no longer during a dearth.
However, my bees are still out of stores so I guess I will set up remote feeding stations tomorrow. Pollen supplement coming UPS and will feed out of a bird feeder (away from hives).
Later,
John.
We still havent officially even hit Summer yet. I think we are too early talking about a combine for winter survival, in particular since you live in Florida. Just hang loose for awhile and see what a Fall flow will do for you..or not, then you could make a better determination on how to handle it.
Johnpfaff, the reason the bees are robbing the hives is not because they're being fed, it's because your colonies are weak. The bees from other hives are not getting to the feeders because they're in the hive, but because of WHERE they are in the hive.
If you have a feeder in the entrance, then the robbers can detect the food quickly. They then go back and tell everyone how easy it was. If you reduce the size of the entrance so the guard bees can detect the presence of intruders more readily, it helps to deter the beginning of Robbing. When the bees are going strong the reducers just get in the way of them doing their work.
If you want the bees to prosper, the best thing for them is to FEED. Funny thing, if the bees have access to easy food, and there's plenty of nectar around, they ignore the easy food. I am guessing what we think tastes good, just doesn't to them. If there's nothing to forage they will take the syrup. Put the feeder in the inner cover far away from the entrance, reduce the space the colony has to defend - meaning take off the extra supers, and reduce the size of the entrance.
(http://www.captainchicken.com/pictures/feeder.jpg)
In this case the feeder is on the inner cover, with an empty super on top so the cover can be put over it.
To CapnChkn,
The feeeders are top feeders, held in place by an empty hive body with a telescoping cover on top. Equipment is new so no leaks anywhere. Feeders have been empty since Wednesday, but minor robbing is still going on.
Commercial apiary within two miles - my two against 25 per yard.
Entrance is reduced to one bee width. Temps will go over 100 degrees today - hope the bees don't suffocate.
Some situations do not match your expectations.
Quote from: joebrown on June 05, 2011, 02:28:33 AM
Feed, Feed, Feed!! If they are still weak at the end of the summer you may need to combine for the winter and then split next spring. Better to have one strong hive than two weak ones in my opinion!! I actually just combine a package I installed this spring with stronger swarms for that very reason. Last year I fed for four months and they filled the brood box but I never could get them to fill out a super completely. They did not make it!!
I don't mean to be rude but joebrown seems to be in need of education like many other newbees. Feeding is so over done that it has become one of the biggest errors beekeepers make. Anyone who recommends feeding without specifics is creating a disaster in their/your hive. They also don't understand beehavior or the way bees build a hive from nothing to a fully developed unit.
It is okay to feed bees when and only when:
1. They are a package, split, or swarm and must draw out enough combs for the existing bees to occupy.
2. To stimulate brood production early in the year.
3. To top off winter stores if the honey crop has been over harvested.
It is not okay to feed bees when:
1. They have drawn enough comb for the bees to occupy but haven't reared enough brood to increase the hive population sufficiently to crowd said population unto new frames.
2. They were hived on drawn combs and have been in the hive more than 14 days.
3. The beekeeper wishes the bees to manufacture more combs without the necessary manipulation of frames to force the manufacture of new combs.
4. Feeding is done to substitute for what the beekeeper might think is a inadequate honey flow or source.
5. Feeding just because someone recommended it.
In ALL of the cases of when not to feed what happens is that the bees back fill the brood area with nectar, reducing the ability of the queen to rear sufficient population to grow the hive. This is called being Honey Bound.
Bees will only draw combs on frames on which they occupy, if there are not enough bees to occupy another frame they will not draw comb until such time as the population increases sufficiently to occupy additional frames, then they will draw combs on those newly occupied frames only. This can be corrected by moving the outside frames (storage frames) outward one space and replacing them with undrawn combs. The reason this works is because bees will leave storage combs but will not abandon brood combs, so by moving the storage combs outward and replacing them with undrawn frames the bees will drawn comb on those frames because they will move off of the storage combs unto the undrawn combs to keep the cluster intact. The new combs will use some of the stores in the making of combs and creates additional space for the queen to lay eggs while at the same time freeing up previously nectar filled frames for brood production.
Honey Bound bees will swarm because they are crowded before they will move over onto undrawn combs that the population isn't large enough to occupy.
Honey Bound bees don't have sufficient population to prevent robbing. Continued feeding exacerbates the problem.
QuoteLast year I fed for four months and they filled the brood box but I never could get them to fill out a super completely. They did not make it!!
That is exactly what I'm tallking about, he fed for 4 months and the hive was so honey bound that they couldn't grow. If he had fed for only a short period (2 weeks at most) the hive would have developed normally and been in good condition and prepared for winter.
Thanks for your advice. I believe I will rotate the frames in order to have them build out the remaining frames. One hive is recovering from an ant attack where they lost half the colony population including the queen! Should I feed them longer while they recoup? They are raising their own queen and will not bee inspected again until July 1. The other hive will have feeder removed on Saturday, since ey are not taking it anyway.
Matt, patience is a virtue...especially when it comes to beekeeping! There's plenty coming in for them right now and they are only going to build at their own pace. When they need the other combs drawn, they will draw them.
Scott
Quote from: Brian D. Bray on June 07, 2011, 04:53:19 PM
Quote from: joebrown on June 05, 2011, 02:28:33 AM
Feed, Feed, Feed!! If they are still weak at the end of the summer you may need to combine for the winter and then split next spring. Better to have one strong hive than two weak ones in my opinion!! I actually just combine a package I installed this spring with stronger swarms for that very reason. Last year I fed for four months and they filled the brood box but I never could get them to fill out a super completely. They did not make it!!
I don't mean to be rude but joebrown seems to be in need of education like many other newbees. Feeding is so over done that it has become one of the biggest errors beekeepers make. Anyone who recommends feeding without specifics is creating a disaster in their/your hive. They also don't understand beehavior or the way bees build a hive from nothing to a fully developed unit.
It is okay to feed bees when and only when:
1. They are a package, split, or swarm and must draw out enough combs for the existing bees to occupy.
2. To stimulate brood production early in the year.
3. To top off winter stores if the honey crop has been over harvested.
It is not okay to feed bees when:
1. They have drawn enough comb for the bees to occupy but haven't reared enough brood to increase the hive population sufficiently to crowd said population unto new frames.
2. They were hived on drawn combs and have been in the hive more than 14 days.
3. The beekeeper wishes the bees to manufacture more combs without the necessary manipulation of frames to force the manufacture of new combs.
4. Feeding is done to substitute for what the beekeeper might think is a inadequate honey flow or source.
5. Feeding just because someone recommended it.
In ALL of the cases of when not to feed what happens is that the bees back fill the brood area with nectar, reducing the ability of the queen to rear sufficient population to grow the hive. This is called being Honey Bound.
Bees will only draw combs on frames on which they occupy, if there are not enough bees to occupy another frame they will not draw comb until such time as the population increases sufficiently to occupy additional frames, then they will draw combs on those newly occupied frames only. This can be corrected by moving the outside frames (storage frames) outward one space and replacing them with undrawn combs. The reason this works is because bees will leave storage combs but will not abandon brood combs, so by moving the storage combs outward and replacing them with undrawn frames the bees will drawn comb on those frames because they will move off of the storage combs unto the undrawn combs to keep the cluster intact. The new combs will use some of the stores in the making of combs and creates additional space for the queen to lay eggs while at the same time freeing up previously nectar filled frames for brood production.
Honey Bound bees will swarm because they are crowded before they will move over onto undrawn combs that the population isn't large enough to occupy.
Honey Bound bees don't have sufficient population to prevent robbing. Continued feeding exacerbates the problem.
QuoteLast year I fed for four months and they filled the brood box but I never could get them to fill out a super completely. They did not make it!!
That is exactly what I'm tallking about, he fed for 4 months and the hive was so honey bound that they couldn't grow. If he had fed for only a short period (2 weeks at most) the hive would have developed normally and been in good condition and prepared for winter.
I agree 100%.
The 'they will quit taking feed when there is a natural flow on' is right on up there with 'pinch all queen cells' on the list of bad advice.
Matthew; Hardwood has the right answer and he's close to your location. There's plenty of forage right now so no need to feed them. The cabbage palms are starting to bloom as we speak, so they'll have an additional source very soon. At the most I would check the frames and move any full or near full honey frames outwards and foundation in towards the center. They'll draw it out as the hive expands and needs additional brood space. Patience works every time!
Okay guys, I'm getting it! Just leave them alone! Will take the feeders out on Saturday during inspection and start to move brood frames out and empty frames in. Thanks for keeping us new guys on track!
Matt,
I live just south of you and I inspected my bees yesterday and they're finally bringing in some nectar and pollen. I'm not sure where they're getting it, but I'm glad they are. I took off all of my feed jars.
Soon we will have the cabbage palms and that will help. Later in the year, we have the pepper here in Mims. I don't know if you have it where you live.
Hang in there! Larry
Matthew,
I don't think you move the brood frames out. You keep the brood nest intact and move the storage frames next to the brood nest out. You put the empty frame next to the last brood frame to get them to work the empty frame. I think you want to leave the brood nest alone??? Someone please correct me if I am wrong.
Idaxon, I was wondering same thing, although, I thought I read that in Fla. moving the brood frame is ok since temps will keep them from being chilled. Saying that, I'm just a neeb and I KNOW NOTHING, just throwing it out there.
You're right Brian! I was reacting to Johnpfaff's post. John, I swear by the robber screens. Open the bottom and reduce the entrance on the screen. You can use Screened Bottom Boards. Brian swears by Slatted racks, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. They're going to NEED more air running through there, or a lot of shade and lemonade.
I should have been more careful as to what I said. You said it so much better than I though Brian, I would have just pointed out that Sugar is simply that. Empty calories. Nectar has more nutrition which is why the bees ignore that unless there's little or nothing else.
If I remember (I just found this post after 3 days. I've been busy.) the Original post was about the hives not being up to snuff yet, and the Florida summer starting. I hear people complaining, "It's HOT." Hmmm. I used to live in Florida, and I never used AC. :-D I rarely saw bees there. I know they're there, I tried, unsuccessfully, to remove a colony from a tree. I can tell you the sun will burn any moisture out of the soil, or you will be wading to the mailbox.
Feeding does lead to Robbing. It is NOT the cause of it. I usually feed until they slow down on the feeder and then I take them off. I use about 2 drops each per quart LGO, Peppermint Extract, and Anise Extract, and Vitamin supplements. If I want to test for foraging nectar (And this is newbee stuff,) I set out a feeder in a place where anybody can get at it. Almost EVERY time they've ignored the feeder until there's nothing else to forage.
I have robber problems. I don't know where they come from. We're in the country, my neighbor has 3 hives 1/8 (200 M) mile away, and there's a National Monument down the road, so lots of old growth forest. With weak colonies, feeding from inside at the top, I have had Robbers come in through a 1 1/4 in (32 mm) entrance and cause the colony to abscond. The Robber screens work. Cross my fingers, so far.
Brian is just alright with me , Brian is just alright oh yeah. Straight up. X:X
thomas
Quote from: VolunteerK9 on June 07, 2011, 10:07:37 PM
Quote from: Brian D. Bray on June 07, 2011, 04:53:19 PM
Quote from: joebrown on June 05, 2011, 02:28:33 AM
Feed, Feed, Feed!! If they are still weak at the end of the summer you may need to combine for the winter and then split next spring. Better to have one strong hive than two weak ones in my opinion!! I actually just combine a package I installed this spring with stronger swarms for that very reason. Last year I fed for four months and they filled the brood box but I never could get them to fill out a super completely. They did not make it!!
I don't mean to be rude but joebrown seems to be in need of education like many other newbees. Feeding is so over done that it has become one of the biggest errors beekeepers make. Anyone who recommends feeding without specifics is creating a disaster in their/your hive. They also don't understand beehavior or the way bees build a hive from nothing to a fully developed unit.
It is okay to feed bees when and only when:
1. They are a package, split, or swarm and must draw out enough combs for the existing bees to occupy.
2. To stimulate brood production early in the year.
3. To top off winter stores if the honey crop has been over harvested.
It is not okay to feed bees when:
1. They have drawn enough comb for the bees to occupy but haven't reared enough brood to increase the hive population sufficiently to crowd said population unto new frames.
2. They were hived on drawn combs and have been in the hive more than 14 days.
3. The beekeeper wishes the bees to manufacture more combs without the necessary manipulation of frames to force the manufacture of new combs.
4. Feeding is done to substitute for what the beekeeper might think is a inadequate honey flow or source.
5. Feeding just because someone recommended it.
In ALL of the cases of when not to feed what happens is that the bees back fill the brood area with nectar, reducing the ability of the queen to rear sufficient population to grow the hive. This is called being Honey Bound.
Bees will only draw combs on frames on which they occupy, if there are not enough bees to occupy another frame they will not draw comb until such time as the population increases sufficiently to occupy additional frames, then they will draw combs on those newly occupied frames only. This can be corrected by moving the outside frames (storage frames) outward one space and replacing them with undrawn combs. The reason this works is because bees will leave storage combs but will not abandon brood combs, so by moving the storage combs outward and replacing them with undrawn frames the bees will drawn comb on those frames because they will move off of the storage combs unto the undrawn combs to keep the cluster intact. The new combs will use some of the stores in the making of combs and creates additional space for the queen to lay eggs while at the same time freeing up previously nectar filled frames for brood production.
Honey Bound bees will swarm because they are crowded before they will move over onto undrawn combs that the population isn't large enough to occupy.
Honey Bound bees don't have sufficient population to prevent robbing. Continued feeding exacerbates the problem.
QuoteLast year I fed for four months and they filled the brood box but I never could get them to fill out a super completely. They did not make it!!
That is exactly what I'm tallking about, he fed for 4 months and the hive was so honey bound that they couldn't grow. If he had fed for only a short period (2 weeks at most) the hive would have developed normally and been in good condition and prepared for winter.
I agree 100%.
The 'they will quit taking feed when there is a natural flow on' is right on up there with 'pinch all queen cells' on the list of bad advice.
First off, I am not new to beekeeping just this forum. Second, I do not need your lessons. Just offering my two cents, which is what you do on a forum, and yes that post was very rude. Glad to know that I am in the presence of at least one beekeeper that knows it all though! Just a few question for you since you are such a Genius! How do you know my hives were honey bound? Did you see them? I think not. Last summer was extremely dry. I do not know about SE, TN, but where I am from the summers are hot and the winters are cold. If the bees do not build up early there is not another opportunity. The bees can eat off supers really quick during July and August and I have never gotten a Fall Flow. I have also not had the robbing problem that so many on here have, and I have at least 15 hives in each yard and there are other yards in the area. That could change, but as of now the only thing my bees are robbing is the hummingbird feeder. Every beekeeper should be prepared and we should all be looking forward, preparing for the flows and the dearths, requeening, treatments and yes possible combinations. If you want to procrastinate, so be it, but I am going to be prepared. Florida and SE, TN may provide year long honey flows, but in the Foothills of NC you have Poplar and Sourwood (if you are lucky) and that is it. I got my bees after the Poplar Flow and there was no Sourwood and every package died; all 10! I have never had a problem with anyone on here, but I guess every thing changes at some point!
Joe,
Sorry you took such offense at Brian's post. As he said at the beginning, he didn't mean to be rude.
Since you are newer to this site you may not have had the opportunity to come to know that Brian is a VERY experienced, VERY knowledgeable beek, and shares his knowledge VERY generously with those of us who ask questions he has answered hundreds of times before. I always look forward to reading what he has to say.
Please stick around and contribute to the give and take here, but maybe with a little less sarcasm.
Linda D
I don't think anyone is trying to offend, Joe. At the risk of opening old wounds, you could try getting on the wrong side of Finski. I made a comment in the fall of last year that the bees heated the cluster, not the inside of the hive. That dude haunted me for around 2 months. It ended with a 5 page thread, Finski putting me, Americans, and British bee people down for not knowing (Explitive) about how cold it gets, reciting the weather report for my area, and me defending myself to any post he made mention of me in.
He now does not answer any of my posts, and I try not to read his. Brian has his head on his shoulders, and I meet very few young beekeepers. I myself need progressive lenses, and can't find a workaround.
My question to you is: What is SE? Do you mean Southeast Tennessee? We've a dry spell here, in Central TN, finally got some rain yesterday, about 30 minutes worth. Just enough to get things wet.
There is constructive criticism and destructive criticism. The message could be summed up as
"Anyone who recommends feeding without specifics is creating a disaster in their/your hive."
I agree with that 100% and I should have done a better job at listing specifics. The rest of the post was just flat out rude and full of assumptions. It was so dry last summer that most of my bees ate a super of honey in less than two months, the leaves fell off my fig trees, and most everything I have planted almost died.
Quote from: joebrown on June 10, 2011, 08:34:15 PM
There is constructive criticism and destructive criticism. The message could be summed up as
"Anyone who recommends feeding without specifics is creating a disaster in their/your hive."
I agree with that 100% and I should have done a better job at listing specifics. The rest of the post was just flat out rude and full of assumptions. It was so dry last summer that most of my bees ate a super of honey in less than two months, the leaves fell off my fig trees, and most everything I have planted almost died.
Joe,
You need to develop a thicker skin. My post was meant to be constructive, I'm not sorry about what I posted, but I am sorry that you took it as such a personal threat or putdown. When I post I direct my comments not just to the person who originated the question thread, but to every beekeeper on the forum. Anyone who has been on this forum for any length of time knows that.
I do not project myself on an expert on bees, an expert is someone who thinks he knows all he needs to know about a subject.
After 50+ years in beekeeping I'm still learning. But so you might understand, I'm at least a 6th generation beekeeper (my greatgreatgreatgrandfather brought bees with him from Germany when he immigrated to the USA in the mid-1800's). My mentor (1875-1965) began his beekeeping in 1898 or 1899 and had over 60 years of beekeeping experience under his belt when he took me under his wing. That was in 1959, I was 10 years old, he mentored me for 7 years (until his death). I've had bees ever since. I've learned a lot my mentor didn't teach me as that was well before the avalanche of mites, chemicals, and other parasites we have today.
Over the years I've mentored a good number of beekeepers and I'm currently mentoring 5, face to face, with offers to help anyone who is willing to listen and learn. I can answer a novice beekeeper and explain to him exactly what he saw the last time he was in his hive and what he will see the next time he opens his hive, just by asking him the age of his hive and what he's done since he got his bees. Assumptions, yes, to a degree, but actions have consequences so given actions have only so many options in consequence.
Explaining or questioning in hopes of increasing the knowledge of oursleves other beekeepers is why we are all on this forum.
There are others on this forum that can do the same thing, Michael Bush, Bjornbee, and Finski come quickly to mind (apologies to those I didn't name). You can chose to heed the advice posted or react negatively, that's up to you. But since I'm still learning about bees, I assume everyone else is too, but that doesn't mean my knowledge won't help someone else. The length of experience is not important as the depth of observation a beekeeper makes, meaning I've learned from some relatively inexperienced beekeepers. Sometimes the questions they ask make things click and I learn something new because strands of observations are suddenly connected.