How to feed frames of honey?

[Hethen57]

How to you folks feed frames of capped honey to a hive during the winter?  I put some frames on the outside of a small cluster and they starved to death in between full frames of capped honey (must have been too cold to move to the honey).  I didn't want to disturb the cluster.  How do the rest of you do it?

[AllenF]

Either right beside the cluster or above the cluster.  But the cluster must have enough numbers to heat and move around the hive to get to the honey.  Small clusters will freeze or starve right beside honey.

[organicfarmer]

i would have done just what you did. But upon your observation do you think that scartching the cappings would have helped?

[Hethen57]

No, I think scratching the cappings would just allow all the honey to drain down onto the bottom board.

With my strong hive, I put a full box of frames above them, and they just moved up onto the honey.  With a small cluster, next time I will just put 3-4 frames in the another box just above the cluster and stuff insulation in the remainder of the box to take up the dead air space and provide insulation.  Then the little cluster could move up to the honey and should be able to maintain the cluster temp.

[T Beek]

Bees build the cells so little if any, honey would escape from a correctly placed frame that's been scraped open.  I place honey frames directly on top and above the brood nest, they've NEVER leaked.  If there are 'empty' frames beside the brood nest I might put a honey frame there, but lately (during breaks in winter especially) I've just been removing empty frames and squeezing bees together w/ insulated followers, then placing any feed (honey frames, sugar or patties) directly ABOVE brood nest.  But that's just me ;)

thomas