Feeding

[beerman]

I had a question on feeding the bees, read a article on it and am now more confused then ever. I have heard so far, don't feed at all, feed when you start a hive, and feed all year. What am I supposed to do? What do you all do?
Thanks Brian

[marksmith]

I feed to get them going.

Every couple weeks when I am in my hives I look at the stores.  If they are putting a lot of it away and it looks to be crowding the brood nest... I quit for a couple weeks.

If they are dry, I will start feeding again.


It all depends on what is happening in your hive.  Depends on how you feel about putting artificial feed into your hive.  Depends on how you feel about spending the $$$ to feed the bees.

[Michael Bush]

I feed until they have capped honey and a flow...

[jhs494]

We feed. Both pollen pattys and suger syrup. Only to help them get going. New colonies need the extra help to get going, and in early spring before anything blooms to help get the bees built up for the first blooms. This year with all our heavy rains we are still feeding our smaller less established hives.

[iddee]

I feed when there are less than 40 or 50 lbs. of honey in the hive, regardless of the time of year, unless I have honey supers on for my use. I never feed when my honey supers are on.

[Yappy]

I feed until they have capped honey and a flow...

Ok, but here is a newbe question,
I started from a 4 frame Nuc added 6 Top-bars 3 week ago
put in 1/2 pollen patty and a gallon of 1:1.
I added 1/2 Gallon 3 days ago. Just checked and it looks like they need 1/2 gallon more now.
The pollen patty is almost gone.
? How do i tell if they are capping Honey or sugar syrup?
Should i add the other 1/2 patty?

[iddee]

Change the words "capped honey" to "capped stores".

Of course, that could mean 1 lb. of stores to last them 5 months. It won't. That's why I go by weight.

[bigbearomaha]

for me, the issue of artificially feeding is very relative to the availability of foraging resources in the area made available to the bees.  some people have bees in areas where there isn't much offering all the time.  If that's the case, ten it's in the bees best interest to feed them as you ( the beekeeper) put them in an environment that has limited foraging resources.

If the weather makes a wild change and nothing is growing  (it happens) it's no one's fault that nothing is growing and it is akin to being a good neighbor providing them with something to eat.

If there is plenty of available forage in the area and the weather is reasonable,  I see no reason (just my own opinion) to feed bees that should be perfectly capable of feeding themselves by foraging.  In talking about building comb to have somewhere to put said foraged resources,  I collect bees from swarms and cutouts,  I don't buy them in packages.  bees in packages are shipped with a can of sugar water to hold them over but that's an iffy situation depending on travel time.  for the swarms and cutouts  I have placed in various places, (especially in the nature center forest where my main beeyard is) there is plenty of various foraging available and  I have had every colony newly placed building comb and foraging within the first 24 hours successfully to date.

obviously, opinions differ and your mileage may vary.

Big Bear