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  • overfeeding??!!

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #10338  by JoJo36
 22 Mar 2021, 11:50
Hi thanks All
It's still only about 12 degrees today so thinking too cold still until next week forecast 13-14 degrees??!!
I'm keen to get started but don't want hypothermia in my bees!!:)
Hmmm??!!
 #10340  by NigelP
 22 Mar 2021, 14:32
JoJo wouldn't put too much store by exact temperatures and inspections.
Let the bees tell you....if they are flying strongly then it's okay to open up, but obviously don't spend too long.
Its currently 12C where I live and the bees are flying strongly.
I've just finished a quick inspection of the 12 hives in my garden.
I opened one up mid winter as getting light and needed fondant adding. Better fed than dead.
Bees are quite hardy critters it's us beekeepers who are getting soft and wanting it all nice and warm when we do our inspections.
 #10343  by JoJo36
 22 Mar 2021, 17:25
Hi All

Well I only managed to check one hive today as had limited time and plenty of bees flying!

My hive no 1 has quite a few bees, the super had loads of stores about 9 full-ish and in the brood some stores around some of the frames but the frames look quite dark and probably need changing too!
I had a couple of lighter pieces of brood comb at ends which I placed towards the middle to allow queen to lay if she needed too.
I placed a super with drawn comb on top and just transferred one frame full of sealed sugar syrup so they don't starve?!
I've come away thinking I shouldn't have left any frames of sugar syrup in the super and put all empty comb??!!
I never noticed any brood frame completely full of sugar syrup so thought I would be cautious but as soon as I closed up I kept thinking maybe I should be doing a shook swarm with this one too??!!
The queen has laid some eggs in the darkish comb but didn't have any choice and there was sealed brood too.
My hive no 2 has the most sealed brood so was thinking maybe putting on a super and feeding to draw out comb and have colony on brood and a half, but wondered about your thoughts on this?
So much to think about??!! :)
 #10346  by Patrick
 22 Mar 2021, 18:16
Yikes, a lot going on already! It’s only March 😀!

Dark brood combs are no problem at all. It’s when they become treacle black, damaged, loads of drone cells, areas missing etc you normally think about replacing wholesale. I would leave them be for the mo. and let them build up normally.

At the danger of sounding a bit of a killjoy, can I suggest not aiming for too many proactive manipulations this year than you need to? The reason is the bees will require you to do some reactive work as well quite soon and you risk so many things going on at once both you and the bees get confused and some unintended (and apparently inexplicable) consequences result.

I only say it because it’s what happened to me when I started. The UK foraging season is crazy short and if the bees are constantly changing course they may never get a chance to settle down before it’s over again. I now aim to do the minimum I can for the majority of hives and just do a couple of new projects alongside.
 #10347  by JoJo36
 22 Mar 2021, 18:30
Hi Patrick

Do you think taking off the super and replacing with an empty one bar one frame was good or should I have not put any in the super??!!

I really don't want to be shaking, feeding and worrying about them all the time so the least I have to do the better!!

As I had overfed them in hive 1 I thought an empty super would encourage them to fill up when the flow starts or do you think I should have left on super full of stores??!!

My hive 2 is the one with loads of sealed brood and I thought I should put an empty super on and take off sealed sugar syrup too??!!

I've never picked up a queen so the shook swarm sounds a bit scary but I suppose no different than putting queen in top box with bcc??!!

I'll be thinking of hive 1 until tomorrow now:)
 #10350  by NigelP
 22 Mar 2021, 19:08
Why do you think you need to pick up the queen to do a shook swarm?
The clue is in the shook....if there are no bees left in the old frames after you "shook" then queen is with the rest of bees.
 #10351  by JoJo36
 22 Mar 2021, 19:27
Because I watched Stewart Spinks from Norfolk Honey Company and he showed finding queen and placing her in cage before he shook frames and Dave Cushman said the same on his blog.

Not having to find her and shaking the lot of them sounds better, after all what can go wrong??!!:)

Having a nice clean hive and frames sounds good to me!

I think worrying too much about right and wrong decisions make it stressful and takes the enjoyment out of keeping them so I'll approach one job at a time and try not to interfere unless necessary, having said that I'm already thinking of making room in hive 2!!:)

Thanks for all your suggestions by the way, much appreciated.
 #10352  by JoJo36
 22 Mar 2021, 19:28
Blimey forgot to say 12 hives you must be busy all the time??!!
 #10354  by JoJo36
 23 Mar 2021, 07:00
Hi All
Sorry more stupid questions today!

Firstly hive 1 yesterday adding an empty super with one frame of sealed sugar syrup good idea or should I swap for another empty one leaving whole super empty?! There were frames that had food in brood but not a full one I think?!

Hive 2 the one with loads of sealed brood and another super with loads of sealed sugar syrup, would you think a good idea to remove super with stores and add a super with undrawn comb and feed 1-1 syrup as I don't have many supers with drawn comb at this stage?!

Hive 3, the shook swarm sounds good and would you say leave that until next week or if I have time do that today if the weather okay and plenty of bees flying?!

I almost want them sorted to enable them to expand rather them wanting to think about swarming when the weather gets warmer next week I believe?!!

Anyway thanks again and interesting to hear different opinions with regards to carrying out tasks in general!
 #10355  by NigelP
 23 Mar 2021, 08:38
JoJo36 wrote:
22 Mar 2021, 19:27
Because I watched Stewart Spinks from Norfolk Honey Company and he showed finding queen and placing her in cage before he shook frames and Dave Cushman said the same on his blog.
Glad I don't watch all these vids/read sites etc. They seem to enjoy complicating simple actions. People who are good at finding queens seem to enjoy rubbing it in to the rest of us (like me) who are not so good at spotting them.
Dave Cushman alas is no longer with us. He used to run the most unbiased site on the planet. Now Roger has taken over running it, it's full of his opinions rather than factual material.