Pretty worried...

diggity · November 20, 2011, 02:45:06 PM

So we have had unseasonably warm weather here in the Northeast so far, so I went out to check the girls today. Plenty of bees, and a decent amount of honey on the top super, but the bottom super had pretty much no honey left at all! I fed them like crazy back in September, and both supers were pretty much full by the first week of October. If they ate out the entire bottom super already, what chance is there that they'll survive the winter on what's in the top? Very concerned... what do you folks recommend? Should I put an empty super above the inner cover and put a boardman feeder in there with some really thick syrup?

Thanks!

Rock331 · November 20, 2011, 03:20:54 PM

I am new to bee keeping so hear is what I did. My hive is a late cut out from a water meter. We had no rain and over 100 degree temp for several months in Oklahoma. My bees appear to be strong but not a lot of stores. I put ten pounds of dry sugar on top of a sheet of news paper and said a prayer for them. No sure if I want a mild winter which means they will be more active and eat more or a cold winter to keep them in the hive. Good luck with your bees

VolunteerK9 · November 20, 2011, 03:49:22 PM

I would second the dry sugar 'mountain camp' method. I dont think you really need the moisture in the hive this time of year from syrup feeding.

Or, make you some of Robo's candy. I did last night. It worked but took quite a while.

diggity · November 21, 2011, 12:27:23 PM

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll leave some dry sugar for them. Looks like the weather is going to be pretty much warm for a while yet too, so I'll keep a close eye on them.

BeeMaster2 · November 21, 2011, 01:11:47 PM

I just opened up 2 of my hives yesterday. I was expecting lots of bees but little honey stores. These are the 2 hives that produced all of the honey that I got this year, 180#. One had so few of bees that I reduced it down from a deep and a shallow super with capped honey to a NUC box. It did have a fare amount of honey in the super but not enough bees to protect it. I put as much of the honey and pollen that was on the deep frames as I could fit. There was a lot of uncapped honey and nectar in both hives. I took away the deep super from the other hive and put the half full shallow super on it. I suspect both of these hives swarmed while they were at the farm. When I brought them back home I knew they were light but I did not take them apart to inspect. My squirrel box hive/swarm has quadrupled in weight. It stayed in town the hole time. I don't plan on opening it until spring when I clean it out.
Jim

organicfarmer · November 23, 2011, 05:21:41 PM

candy, or fondant but no syrup anymore here in MA. Too much moisture, no possibility to process.
i am preparing candy board as i fed part of the fall and hives still light (and no harvest before that)

Stone · November 25, 2011, 08:29:10 PM

Last weekend it was in the 60s up here. I mixed up and fed 10 gallons of syrup to my 11 hives. Inverted one gallon plastic buckets with holes in the lids right on top of the top bars. Surrounded it with an empty medium, inner cover with insulation board on top, shallow ventilated super, then outer cover.

The daytime temps have been in the mid to upper 40s and my bees fly at these temperatures so I suspect this syrup will all be gone when I open them up tomorrow. Forecast is again for the upper 50s to low 60s for this weekend. Gonna mix up another ten gallons and feed. I don't know how much honey they have in the lower boxes but I've seen frames of honey in the upper boxes. I've hefted a couple of my hives and they were mighty light so I intend to keep feeding for awhile. I'll do the dry sugar feeding when the weather turns colder.

Vance G · November 28, 2011, 03:16:30 PM

We have had flying warm weather for several days here but the wind velocities have been ferocious. A truckdrivers wife died when the commercial semi they were operating blew over! At least no empty trains blew off the track. That happens too believe it or not. It is currently 45 and the winds are calm and I am fairly frantic to go out and weigh my colonies to see how they are faring before the real cold sets in. But I have a honeydew that has to be done today so I can just hope that it will be fit to work them tomorrow. I still have to put the homosote and insulation boards on under my covers so the bees don't get rained on in the up and down weather we have here.