Chicken Licken Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Please can you give me some advice about spring feeding. We had a new colony in early summer last year and it grew well. We fed it in the autumn and after a lot of consideration left it with a super on as stores over the winter. (My dad is the beekeeper - I am the learner assistant!). I think it is set up as brood box, queen excluder, super, crown board. The question is should we risk lifting the lid (about 10 degrees here and the bees are flying and collecting pollen) to see if the stores have been used up and if they need feeding. Also should the queen excluder be on or off? and finally should they be fed with fondant? I am a little confused as to whether the queen excluder should be on or off. My dad kept bees for years as a young man, but has had about a 40 year gap in his keeping and my beginners course hasn't shed enough light on what needs to be done. I would hate them to starve in the last few weeks of early spring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olly Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Not sure about the QE question - I can't see why you wouldn't leave it on, to be honest, unless you want her to lay in the super - but no doubt Rab or another will be along to answer that! Re feeding, bees can starve in the spring even though they have survived the winter- if it's warm enough for them to be flying then it won't hurt to lift the lid and check on stores, and I've been advised to add some candy(fondant) at this stage. I'd give them some anyway, better safe than sorry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Never leave a Q/E on over winter. If the bees use up all the stores downstairs (or even only some of it) and the cluster moves up into the super they will leave the queen behind and she will die of cold. End of colony - or at least a headache for the beekeper in the springtime as the bees may well survive, but would obviously dwindle in the springtime. The risk of her laying in it is there, but re-applying the Q/E in spring will sort it all out in a brood cycle (as long as she is contained downstairs (easily checkable after three days)). I care not a jot if she needs to lay in a super, but mine would be a spring addition over the 14 x 12 brood box. Better than restraining her lay-rate due to lack of brooding space. Presumably this is a standard National with deep brood frames? I don't leave a super on - they have enough stores to get through to spring with a 14 x 12 brood box filled with stores in the autumn (1.7 times the size of a deep brood box). Now to spring feeding. This is usually with 1:1 syrup so they use it rather than store it. The extra water allows the bees to use honey for larval feed production, it also emulates a nectar flow and the bees accelerate the lay-rate of the queen. Half a litre a week is usually enough. I use frame feeders for delivery. Now that is only part of the story. Larvae also need a lot of protein, so pollen supplies are important. No pollen, no larvae! If short of the natural variety, a pollen substitute may need to be fed if continued expansion is required during cold or wet spells, or if the pollen stores are depleted. Also, once the hive population expands rapidly, more food is going to be needed and sugar syrup may have to be fed heavily if the expected nectar flow is late. All ways round, walk before you try to run. A colony expanding a little more slowly is better than a dead colony due to spring starvation. It does happen. If you only have one or two colonies, I would recommend restraint. You lose a bit of crop but do not have that higher risk of colony failure. The usual problem is that of readying the colony for the OSR flow which can be early April. If the colony is using all the forage for brood, very little surplus may be had. Beekeepers then complain that the OSR was 'no good' while really it was the bees that missed the boat. Remember bees need to be about 3 weeks old to be out foraging, so timings are important. The other thing that slows spring brooding is too much stores in the brood box, so nowhere for her to lay. If it is sugar syrup it needs to be consumed (or removed) and if honey needs to be moved up into a super as soon as possible. Having spare drawn comb is a definite advantage in this situation, but foundation is the next best. Hope that gives some food for thought. No two colonies are the same. I swap in emerging brood (or maybe a frame of mostly capped brood) depending on my assessment of where the colony is at, and where I want it to be at a certain time. I don't always get it right. Regards, RAB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicken Licken Posted February 12, 2011 Author Share Posted February 12, 2011 Thank you RAB for such a detailed response. We waited until the warmest part of the day, the sun shined and the bees were very active. There were still some stores in the super, and the bees were accessing them. So we took off the queen excluder, put the fondant on the crown board and left them to go about there bee business. They were definitely collecting pollen and bringing it into the hive so hopefully all is well in there. Thank you again for the explanation of why the queen excluder should not be on - it makes perfect sense now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
