Spring flow

[slacker361]

With this crazy weather, how can one determine when the spring flow is done?

[SmokeEater2]

Our weather has been so messed up this year that we're all still feeding them and hoping a flow finally starts.

[Brian D. Bray]

Our weather has been so messed up this year that we're all still feeding them and hoping a flow finally starts.

And as a result, when the weather does break, your brood chamber will be so back filled with syrup that the hive has neither the room to rear more brood or a place to put the natural nectar. 

The bees are bringing in more pollen and nectar, between rain drops, than you think.  Enough to feed the current population, grow more brood, and even put a little away for stores. 

In my area we've averaged aout 3 rainless days a month since Christmas, I have not fed my bees, they are doing fine, they haven't grown as large as in previous years but they are growing.  The amount of rain might make the difference on whether or not I get a harvestable honey crop or not, but as far as the bees go, they do not need feeding unless they are either a newly hived package, a split, or a newly created nuc.

[mushmushi]

I agree with Brian.

I remember in Spring I removed some of the syrup filled frames they did not eat to make room for brood.

If one of the hives is really starving, I add a syrup filled frame back in the hive but I would not go ahead and feed, except if they had a lot of frames to build (i.e. a split of a nuc).