new hives -feed all through summer?

[aircooled]

I have two new hives that I started from packages. So far, so good. I am using all starter strips in brand new boxes. I have been feeding sugar syrup and I was wondering that if I want them to continue building out all those foundation strips, should I have sugar syrup available to them for the entire summer? Or is it ok that once they fully build out the boxes I am going to use for brood rearing, at that point take away the sugar syrup and just let them collect their own nectar and work at their own pace for the supers?

Many thanks!

-mike

[Mike Gillmore]

In this part of the country you can probably expect to see your bees drawing out comb spring through the first half of summer. Once late summer and fall arrives it seems nearly impossible to get them to draw out any new comb. They will just fill all empty available comb and not waste any resources on building new comb as they prepare for winter.

You want to encourage them to continue to draw as much comb as possible right now and into early summer. Feeding now will help them out tremendously until you get into a good nectar flow and then you will likely see them begin to ignore the syrup. Use your best judgment, but you can probably back off feeding once you get into the flow.

Heading into the dry part of the summer you may want to think about feeding again to help them through it, if necessary.

These are just a few observations I've made locally.

[Hambone]

I hived my package 2 weeks ago. The first week they sucked the syrup down. The last half week, they have hardly taken any. I am stoping all feeding on Sunday. 2 weeks and 2 days in. But I am in a great flow right now. Flowers, shrubs, ect.. blooming like crazy.

[Michael Bush]

Some hives will stock away the syrup until there is no where for the queen to lay and then swarm. I would not feed all summer.