Summer dearth: Knowing when to feed

[Tom Davidson]

Here in the Piedmont of NC we are beginning to be in the summer dearth, right in time for the solstice. How much honey in pounds would a 60,000-strong colony need to survive well during the dearth? How much honey is in a typical brood frame (both sides included) with the corners filled will honey and nectar? At what point do you feed?

[JRG13]

It depends on if you want them to use their honey now or feed them and try to get them to maintain their surplus for winter use. What kind of brood frame you using? Assuming a deep, about 1-3lbs usable honey per frame would be my guess depending on width of comb etc.. I think most people equate a box of brood to be about 100lbs worth of honey consumption which is about 30lbs per week if your queen is still laying, and I assume that accounts for feeding the rest of the bees as well.

[Tom Davidson]

It depends on if you want them to use their honey now or feed them and try to get them to maintain their surplus for winter use. What kind of brood frame you using? Assuming a deep, about 1-3lbs usable honey per frame would be my guess depending on width of comb etc.. I think most people equate a box of brood to be about 100lbs worth of honey consumption which is about 30lbs per week if your queen is still laying, and I assume that accounts for feeding the rest of the bees as well.

I'm using double-deeps, 9 frames per each brood box and shallow supers. Since I'm in my second year I wasn't sure visually if I am correctly judging how much food stores the colonies have on hand. I'd like to do a second harvest from the remaining supers once the sourwood, sweet-, alsike- and white clovers finish up, but didn't want to take away food if they needed it, depending on what the brood frames below show. Thanks for the tips!

[wcubed]

You need to know what the deeps contain to make a call. If they swarmed, the upper deep is likely mostly capped honey. (Backfilled with nectar in swarm preps) In that case, you won't need to feed and you can harvest any and all honey in the supers.

In some seasons, some colonies will establish the brood nest in the upper deep and not back down. The lower is mostly pollen. In that case, you will need to leave them a shallow of honey above, and possibly trickle feed through the summer to keep them from using it up.

Note that mid summer is not generally an absolute dearth. There are patches of forage they can use to supplement groceries, but it is not enough to push them into overhead storage of surplus. You can monitor the consumption of their honey reserve and gage when it would be advisable to supplement with syrup. There is normally enough forage available to continue to reduce the brood volume. Throttling back on brood volume assists in conservation of stores. Locally, and I would guess your area, colonies are sometimes down to 2 or 3 deep frames of brood by the 1st of August. Just in time to start building brood volume to rear young bees for wintering.

Walt

[squarepeg]

good question tom. i have a colony in a single deep right now that is a secondary swarm that i caught in one of my traps. this particular swarm issued at the end of the main flow here. they managed to get a single deep pretty well drawn out, but hardly any comb has been drawn for the last few weeks in the medium super i added.

this hive is very light on stores, and there's a lot of capped brood soon to be emerging. i see a lot of pollen coming in, but i'm not sure about nectar.

i happened to have a medium frame of last fall's capped honey in the freezer. i thawed it out and put it in this hive. i figure i'll check it in a week or so, and if the honey is gone i'll probably go ahead and put some feed on. if they are not using it, i'll assume they have enough coming in and won't feed.

your second year colonies should be alright, but like walt suggests, pull a few frames from those upper deeps and see if they are heavy with honey. you might consider harvesting some of those, and let the bees fill them back up with your fall flow.

[Tom Davidson]

Thank you so much, fellas!

[squarepeg]

i took a look at that medium frame of honey that i gave to the late swarm hive last week. they have uncapped most of it, but not used much. to my delight, they have also drawn out several frames of foundation adjacent to that honey frame.

i guess there is more of a flow than i thought, plus the work force is increasing with each round of emerging brood. i'm happy i don't have to feed.