Am I Done Feeding??

[Nabber86]

My current hive situation consists of 2 brood chambers and 1 super (all medium depth). The bottom 2 boxes are chock full of bees, brood, pollin, and some honey. I stole a couple of capped frames of honey from the super (top box) in August and I have been feeding heavily ever since. I am not sure how many quarts or gallons, but I know that I have gone through 2 x 10-pound bags of sugar in the last month.

I was putting on a couple more quarts of syrup this morning and I noticed that the super is just about full. Presumibly with the frames of honey that I left them (a couple full frames and the rest partial) plus all that sugar syrup. So when the super is completely full I am done feeding. Is this correct?? A full super should get them through the winter, shouldnt it?

Thanks.

[Nabber86]

Anyone?

[RayMarler]

I'm not real sure of your weather, but that setup would work for me here just fine and I'd stop feeding sugar for a couple weeks and check again how they look, expecting them to be fine.

[Michael Palmer]

I weigh mine. 3 story medium colony here in Vermont should weigh 125-130. I feed until they weigh up.

[Mike Gillmore]

I assume that you are not using a queen excluder between the brood boxes and the super. If you are, then it needs to come off so the queen has full access to the super over winter.

It sounds like your brood boxes may be heavy with brood in various stages with a smattering or band of honey reserves across the top and down sides of the frames. Preparing for winter you should soon see the queen begin to reduce egg laying and the bees will condense their brood area, backfilling the empty cells left by the emerging bees.

If I'm reading your description correctly on their current status it sounds like they will need more nectar/syrup to backfill these cells in the lower boxes. It's hard to tell if you need to feed syrup or not. It depends on your fall flow and weather conditions over the next few weeks. They may bring in enough to backfill those cells in the brood boxes. Monitor them closely and feed them if you do not see the empty cells below being filled with nectar.

[devdog108]

Couldn't you just super it and keep feeding. See what they might do... I plan on it...

[DRUR]

The bottom 2 boxes are chock full of bees, brood, pollin, and some honey.

How many frames (of each) are brood/eggs/larva, pollen, and honey?


I was putting on a couple more quarts of syrup this morning and I noticed that the super is just about full. Presumibly with the frames of honey that I left them (a couple full frames and the rest partial) plus all that sugar syrup. So when the super is completely full I am done feeding. Is this correct??

You don't say whether the super is a deep, medium, or shallow. (correction: I am trying to answer to many of these related issues and can't keep up with them, Michael Palmer's response should be about right) 10 frames in a medium super fully capped will have about 42-45# of honey. That is not near enough to winter here in Texas. So, No I would say you are not done feeding with just a medium super completely full of honey unless you also have another deep full of honey.


A full super should get them through the winter, shouldnt it?

No, not without additional honey in the deep.

Italians are bad about having an open brood nest, and in many instances they do not contract the brood area in preparation for winter. They will continue to make bees until they use up all their honey and then starve to death. Therefore, you must force the brood nest to contract to an area no larger than about 3 frames.

If there is not natural flow of nectar to do this then I would advise that you continue feeding until the brood nest is contracted to no more than 3 frames (deep). To do this with 2 deeps and 1 medium, you will end up with about 140# of honey/pollen, which should be more than enough to get you through the winter. If you only had 2 deeps and no medium, contraction of the brood area to 3 frames would give you about 100# of honey/pollen, which is what I try to shoot for in Texas, but our bees are more active during the warm winter days and may use as much or more as further north. I don't know this. Hope this helps.

[Nabber86]

Thanks for all the responses. I will keep feeding until the take no more.