all robbed out

[mattrogers5]

my 3 hives had 2 shallows each full of honey 2 weeks ago... like a d.a. i did'nt reduce my entrances :( and now all the honey is gone :( ...still full of bees but no stores...what to do? thanks in advance for any help. Matt

[beegee]

I guess you'd better start feeding them so they 'll have something for the winter. Oak Ridge is north of Greensboro,isn't it? Our honey flow down east is mighty sparse. Is there anything blooming much in the Piedmont?

[Michael Bush]

Minimize the entrance or the robbers will steal the syrup as well. And feed lik crazy.

[mattrogers5]

thanks for the quick response.. i've already reduced the intrances and iwill start feeding...ifound one hive with one med of unrobbed honey..will this be enough for 3 hives? THESE HIVES ARE PACKED WITH BEES!

[Mimi's Bees]

Hey,
I had robbers last week and started to panic but I read about robber screens and had my husband make one up real fast. It worked very, very well. Within a couple of hours the robbing had slowed and the next day the robbers were a little angry they couldn't find their way in. But the girls just giggled as they returned to the hive.

Mimi's Bees

[Michael Bush]

A robber screen is a big help.

I don't know how much stores you need in NC to get through the winter. Of course that also depends on if you're down low or up high. Here I would like to see a strong Italian hive have 100 to 150 pounds of honey. A smaller cluster, like the Carniolans or the Ferals, seem to do fine on a lot less.

If you can feed and keep the robbers off, I'd feed them all they'll take until it gets too cold for them to take it or they fill all the comb back up with capped honey.

[Ron Young]

I am only a few miles away from Oak Ridge, and I am trying to feed the cut out hive we did in late August. I hope to get them up to around 90-100 lbs. by Dec. 1. They are around 70 Lbs now, best I can tell.
If I weigh only one side of the hive by lifting it up and sliding the bathroom scales under the edge, does this give an accurate half weight????

[Michael Bush]

>If I weigh only one side of the hive by lifting it up and sliding the bathroom scales under the edge, does this give an accurate half weight????

Close enough for "bee" work. Will it be perfect? No. They could have more honey in the front or the back half, but it's close enough.

[Ron Young]

Sounds good, I will just keep feeding. Since the 24th of August I have fed the colony over 60lbs of sugar. I have been mixing it at a 2:1 ratio, so it is about 90 lbs of syrup. What would be a good guess as to how much this would translate out to be in winter stores. I really have no idea how much they would have just used, and how much they would have just stored up. In addition, I don't have any idea how much it would reduce down to be as they take out work it down reducing the moisture.