Thursday 1 October 2009

Autumn feeding

Since hive1 has 40lb stored honey, and hive2 30lb, a feed may not be strictly necessary, but I wanted to make sure the bees had good stores for the winter.

Using the gallon contact feeders, I mixed 4kg of sugar with water in each. I planned not only to give the bees the feed but also to reverse the brood and super boxes to put the latter below for the winter. The procedure went without incident. I'm very happy to have given them this feed, and although it's a little late in the season to do it I think the bees will have time to convert the syrup into capped honey in time for winter since we're having pretty warm weather at the moment. I'll go back in a week to see how they've got on. Oh, it's worth mentioning that I did not bother going through any frames. I'll do this next time to re-estimate the honey stores.

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