Store very low. Last minute feeding?

[derrick1p1]

This is my 2nd winter.  First winter went well with just 2 hives and a good fall flow.

On a recent inspection of my hives, I found that a few of them have VERY light stores, due to a bad fall flow.  When I harvested in early summer, I left them adequate stores in the upper supers (not expecting such a dearth).  But they have depleted some of this but don't have any stores in the brood chamber.
Temps here in the high 60's during the day still.

Will feeding them sugar syrup heavily help at this point, or am I doomed? 

How will I know if they have enough to get through winter, or will I just have to wait until Spring to find out?

Any pointers would be helpful as I'm beginning to panic a bit, not expecting to find so many stores depleted this late in the season.

Thanks,
Derrick

[Michael Bush]

I would see if you can get them to take syrup.  Warm syrup will be taken better then cold syrup.  As hot as you can stand to put your finger in without getting burned is just right.

If they don't take enough syrup, put some dry sugar on top.  Just put an empty box on top, some newspaper on the top bars, and pour in enough sugar to bring them up to weight.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm#drysugar

The bees can eat dry sugar no matter how cold it is.  They can only take syrup if the syrup is above 50 F.

[tandemrx]

Coming into the first winter for us . . . with snow predicted in a week  :shock:.

In early September one of our hives was extremely light (bad August, very dry).  We started feeding and had a good period of high sixties/low seventies temperatures.

The gals ate us out of house and home in the sugar syrup department. 

Today we were doing some final work with the hives before buttoning them up for winter and the light hive was light no more . . . thing was a ton of bricks.

I have to believe that in GA you will do well with some sugar feeding.  Just stay on top of it - our gals were emptying the gallon top feeder in 2 days easy sometimes.

Even today, when temps were only up to about 53 degrees they were very busy up in the feeder although they have definitely slowed down in the eating department over the last week or so as colder weather has moved in  :'(

[Cindi]

I would see if you can get them to take syrup.  Warm syrup will be taken better then cold syrup.  As hot as you can stand to put your finger in without getting burned is just right.
The bees can eat dry sugar no matter how cold it is.  They can only take syrup if the syrup is above 50 F.

Now this is a very useful bit of information.  I always wondered what temperature would be the best for the bees, I have always let is cool down quite a bit, I understand now that I have allowed it to cool much more than would be necessary, I have wasted time waiting for the syrup to cool down to room temperature, good to know.  Have that wonderful and awesome day, Cindi