Feeding Pollen Patties To Your Colonies

[WVbeekeeper]

Here's some pics and discussion on feeding pollen patties to my colonies yesterday.

Feeding Pollen Patties To Your Colonies (http://wvbeekeeper.blogspot.com/2008/02/feeding-pollen-patties-to-your-colonies.html)

[spunky]

Thanks for sharing

[NeilV]

Thanks for that post. I had put the patty on top of the frames in an upper box, but I plan on getting in there and moving it close to the brood nest tomorrow, if I can get away from work while its still warm.

By the way, in the recent photo on your blog there's a picture of a brand new brood area in an overwintered hive. How would you characterize that winters cluster/brood area in terms of size -- really small, small, medium, large. I'm just trying to figure out how big the cluster in my hive should be, and have no clue.

I have a hive of Russians, and they look about like the photo, but no brood the last time I checked. However, they were not gathering pollen last time I looked, and they are now. I'm hoping they have started raising brood.

Still am learning a lot from your blog. I mixed up a recipe of your feeding stimulant yesterday, and plan to add a baggie feeder with that added to the syrup tomorrow also.

Thanks again,


ndvan

[WVbeekeeper]

The picture of the brood is in a hive with a feral queen. There about three frames with a patch of brood about that size. This colony started a little earlier than most of the other ones. I have three more colonies with capped brood too. Most of the other colonies have just started laying eggs. I have two colonies with no eggs or brood and they have the least amount of bees in the cluster when compared to the other colonies. The colonies with the larger populations going into winter have started rearing brood sooner than those with smaller populations. My bees are not gathering pollen either but going into winter they had bee bread in the brood area to start feed the larvae with when they started back up. You might want to look and see if your bees have any bee bread near the brood area.

[NeilV]

I managed to get the patties moved down and get the new syrup on the hive. I did a quick inspection of the brood area, and there is brood there. Some of it is capped, so I must have missed some eggs or open brood when I last looked. The bees took an immediate interest in the patties, which they had ignored when they were up in the top of the hive. I did see a little bit of stored pollen and bee bread this time, so they are getting surplus pollen. I'm thinking I may just get this hive through the winter.

Thanks for your help.