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Why the heck won't they gain weight (after ALOT of feeding).

10K views 64 replies 18 participants last post by  kilocharlie 
#1 ·
Long story short, I'm feeding hive A, and Hive B. Both are about 10lbs underweight.

Using 1/2 gallon feeders, one right after another, without more than a couple of hours between refills.

2:1 syrup.

Hive A has gained 8lbs after roughly 3 gallons of feed.

Hive B has gained 8lbs after 1 gallon of feed.

WTF is going on here?

No, the feeders aren't leaking.

I'm losing my patience (and losing warm weather).
 
#3 · (Edited)
Hive A has gained 8lbs after roughly 3 gallons of feed.

Hive B has gained 8lbs after 1 gallon of feed.
Points to the methodology of reading the actual weights itself.
Which is what?
And how is identical method execution ensured?

Of course, it could be trivial robbing too.
One hive dries syrup better than the other is a possible factor in.
 
#4 ·
Hi username,

First thing to check is if there is any open brood present. If not, they may be queenless and this will disrupt gainful activities.

There are 2 different grades of corn syrup feed - schedule 55 and schedule 77. My mentor noticed that the bees just seem to burn through the lighter schedule 55 syrup, but they add weight to the hive with schedule 77.

I do make up sugar water, 1:1 when it is warm outside, and 2:1 when it gets cold enough that I want to wear a jacket, but I have learned to add the schedule 77 corn syrup in order to get them to put the weight onto the hive. I also add Honey B Healthy and Nosevit, and a few drops of lemon to keep it slightly acidic. The small amount of lemon helps "invert" the sucrose, meaning that it converts more easily into fructose and glucose.

Or, the easy option - just buy BeeSweet, already mixed up for you.

The other big trick to add weight is to add pollen substitute. That increases the number of bees adding weight to the hive. I use the "Tucson Diet" marketed as MegaBee by Dadant and Sons. It is the original superfood for bees, and still the best on the market.

If you want to get deeper into bee nutrition, read the nutrition section in Randy Oliver's website, www.scientificbeekeeping.com Lots of excellent articles there.
 
#5 ·
Assuming that identical feed is being given to both hives, I'd say that 'passive robbing' is certainly a possibility with Hive A, and would be worth checking out.
LJ
 
#6 ·
What are the populations of each hive?
Assuming there is no robbing taking place I'm wondering if the forager population in Hive A is much greater than Hive B. What does the activity at the entrance look like at each hive? A steady stream of syrup coming in might be triggering more foraging activity, which would result in the bees consuming more syrup for foraging flights but coming back empty handed. Just a thought.
 
#8 ·
I have one like that. It swarmed and never made another queen, and didn't get re-queened until August 6. They just aren't gaining weight, in spite of 2:1 bucket feeding. Maybe there aren't enough nurse bees to raise brood, because bee numbers have never built up properly. I think they will be part of a science experiment to find optimum Winter weights in my area.
 
#9 · (Edited)
Hive A has a similar population to Hive B.

The weather's been rainy and cold for most of the feeding duration, so no obvious robbing has taken place.

I've been using 2 quart jars simultaneously. They generally consume the entire amount throughout the day, and I tend to refill each day, often without the syrup being fully consumed.
 
#14 ·
GregV Passive robbing, NOT obvious robbing.
OK, google that.

> I did not sure why it applies to bees, real life yes
> Passive robbery is done by the big companies and politicians to steal our money in an indirect way.
Well it may not be the correct term to use - some folks call it 'civilised' robbing.

I tend to see this whenever I make-up a late nuc (in a single-yard apiary). It can sometimes develop because the bees in the nuc have exactly the same smell as the bees in one of the full-sized boxes - because that's precisely from where they originated.

So - should it wish to, a forager scout from the full-sized hive can simply walk into that nuc box without being challenged. Even with an anti-robbing screen in place, the scout can follow the already familiar footprint pheromone to be found on the face of the nuc box - and so 'up and over' the screen it goes. Finding a supply of syrup inside, it just helps itself and flies back home. Because the syrup has relatively 'low value', and presumably because it's so easy to access, this source of feed doesn't then develop into mob-handed robbing - foragers just turn up, help themselves, and no-one's any the wiser.

Especially the beekeeper - who, because there's no fighting or sniffing around the box cracks, interprets this increased activity as being the sign of a strong colony. That is, until the hive is inspected, when the puzzled beekeeper discovers that the stores cupboard now lies bare.

The moral of this story is: don't automatically assume that increased activity at a hive entrance - even if everything looks ok - is necessarily a sign that all is well. A quick check is all it takes to confirm this ... or not, as the case may be.
LJ
 
#15 ·
There was a guy named Storch who wrote a book called: "At the Hive Entrance" - a copy of which can be downloaded from http://www.biobees.com/library/general_beekeeping/beekeeping_books_articles/At the Hive Entrance.pdf

He calls this type of robbing 'Latent Robbing' - a good term as Latent means 'Hidden', and describes it thus:
Latent robbing.
One colony is robbing another in the most civilized fashion. A screen placed between the hives is more often than not flown over or around. The robbers even enter the hive. This robbing is tolerated but is not satisfactory to all the colonies. Latent robbing can sometimes explain abnormally large harvests.
LJ
 
#21 ·
#22 · (Edited)
In light of a number of members here suggesting passive robbing as a possibility, I've reduced the entrances down to their smallest setting in those hives that're being fed.

Otherwise, I'm still frustrated at how slowly some of these hives are gaining weight.

Perhaps 2:1 sugar syrup isn't the best feed for weight gain in the fall.
 
#23 ·
...
Otherwise, I'm still frustrated at how slowly some of these hives are gaining weight.

Perhaps 2:1 sugar syrup isn't the best feed for weight gain in the fall.
For as long as bees convert the carbs into brood - no feed will have them gain the weight (even feed the honey - it will evaporate).
The bees don't weigh much themselves.
You are looking at a totally different problem.

When they are done brooding (hopefully soon) - just provide with honey frames and/or dry sugar.
 
#25 ·
Your location I would think the queen is not laying a lot of brood at this time. The prerequisite for brood rearing is bee bread etc. Looking at all the answers you have received on this, I believe sneaky robbing is going on. Since you reduced your entrance, and you closed the upper entrance on the inner cover? you should see some weight gain.
 
#26 ·
I have seen the figure of a frame of honey to raise a frame of brood. This time of year will be seeing a net drop of thousands of timed out foragers. How many thousand bees to the pound? Personally I have fed ~40 pounds of sugar to get a net 20 gain on hive weight. Sometimes makes you question the laws of conservation of energy!:rolleyes:

Somewhere lies the answer.
 
#27 ·
Another possibility for a hive to lose or not gain much weight is heat loss. If a hive is opened too often or for too long (ie. more than 4 minutes in moderate weather), the bees will consume a bunch of honey just bringing the hive temperature back up to ~91 degrees F. This also applies if the box, lid, hive bottom, or any part of the setup "leaks" a lot of heat.

It does not really have to be all that cold outside for heat loss to be a major factor in total honey production. I read of a gentleman who inspected his bees every day and always complained that they rarely made much honey. His neighbor had a world record for wildflower honey production in a single hive. When the neighbor suggested that he not open the hive so often, he replied that his bees were accustomed to his daily visits. Small wonder the poor girls couldn't put 20 pounds up top?
 
#28 ·
That's a terrifying prospect. I did have two hives open for about 5 minutes the other day, when I was looking at the brood. Otherwise, they're not generally open for very long.

Now I'm going to have to be faster. I didn't realize they could lose quite so much weight just having the hive open.
 
#31 ·
I wasn't clear.

when I was feeding, I did not open either hive. Hive A and Hive B were both closed, and both fed. Hive A barely gained any weight, while Hive B gained exactly the amount of weight I fed them.

Hive A had 3 frames of brood. I didn't open Hive B to check brood.
 
#33 ·
........Hive A had 3 frames of brood. I didn't open Hive B to check brood.
Then why don't you check the B for its status?

Somehow it was assumed you correctly checked both - "A had brood" AND "B had no brood".
So now that theory turns possibly wrong too (until B status is confirmed).

People have been bashing their heads to come up with the answers for you.
Yet the information provided is still incomplete.
:)
 
#32 ·
Gotta say- if money isn't an issue I'd throw some ProSweet on those bad boys. It's super thick, already inverted and will add weight like nobody's business. Also I'd pile it on with a big hive top feeder, pail or something to give them no choice but to store it quick. Expensive though.
 
#36 ·
FYI- Ian (Canadian Beekeepers Blog- YouTube) has 5 gallon pails on his colonies and just went through a snow event. If you have a few minutes it's worth it to follow his videos to see what he's been through the last few days. He hasn't brought them indoors yet and had the biggest storm that he can remember this early in October. He just got out to his colonies to find them fat, happy, heat caverns around the boxes and not really noticing what just happened. He mentioned moisture but not having them at the proper weight before he winters is a bigger problem.

The reason I'm mentioning it is- you may have to pick the lesser of two evils. Personally I don't miss with #1 or #2 (mites and starvation). I would get on the phone to MannLake and order 5 gallon pails of ProSweet (the 77 mentioned is like this). Greg and I will just have to disagree on this one. If Ian's colonies are still taking the thick stuff in Canada I'm guessing you can too.
 
#37 · (Edited)
Ian winters his in the conditioned storage AND packed into single boxes.

He CAN winter the boxes pretty much opened (no lids and stuff).
In fact, you want them wintering pretty much openly ventilated, when in the conditioned shed (cold is a non-issue in the conditioned storage, to worry about; the moisture just gets ventilated out also).

Can you do the same?
Do you do what Ian does?

I don't.
As for me, I have nothing in common with Ian (well, pretty much similar winter - that's about it).

The context must be similar, if to do similar things.
 
#38 ·
Ian uses both 2 1/2 gallon pails and 1 gallon pails, Not 5 gallon pails. Size is determined by how much syrup he believes bees need at that point in the bee year and size of the colony.

He also is concerned about too low of a humidity in the winter shed. He likes to see a bit of condensation just beyond edges of cluster. Bees can access moisture to dissolve any crystalized honey. My recall says 35-40% humididty in the winter shed.
 
#40 ·
Hi username,
We've been using BeeSweet, which has the schedule 77 corn syrup in it.

I'm with Greg V about if it is getting too cold for liquid feed. Once there is a danger of freezing, get the liquid feed out of the hive and put up sugar bricks or fondant or both, along with the patties.

Also, if one hive has no brood, shot brood, drone brood only or otherwise poor brood, then they are probably queenless (which would explain why they are not gaining weight) and I'd combine them with the other hive or add a nucleus colony with a hot queen. As Greg says, you may be past the time of year that a laying queen is important - I would combine resources and get the hives into
Winter shape - two deeps and a honey super weighing in well over 130 pounds. If you have to sacrifice a colony to get that for the other, so be it - at least you'll be very likely have bees come Spring.


btw, I highly recommend a hive top feeder when feeding liquid feeds, especially Don the Fat Bee Man's version of the Miller hive-top feeder. It has a 30 degree ramp-tunnel into the liquid food and the bee don't drown in it. Again, I don't use it when it gets cold - it comes off and I replace it with a fondant board-bottomed quilt box.
 
#41 ·
I have found when using jar feeders with holes poked in the lids, hole size can make a huge difference in syrup use. Larger holes allow for faster consumption and it gets stored. Smaller holes slow consumption and more gets used for feeding brood.

I had to check for propolis in the holes I'd poked in the jar lids every fill up.

Hey kilo, I always thought the number of hfcs designated the percent of sugar content that was fructose, not total sugar percentage. I though hfcs 55 was 78% sugar, but 55% of it was fructose with the rest mostly glucose.
 
#52 ·
...
Hey kilo, I always thought the number of hfcs designated the percent of sugar content that was fructose, not total sugar percentage. I though hfcs 55 was 78% sugar, but 55% of it was fructose with the rest mostly glucose.
All I know about the stuff is that the schedule 77, combined with HBH, is what puts weight on the hives. They just sort of burn through the schedule 55 corn syrup, they make it, but they are not moving forward toward Winter preparation. I never had lots of huge colonies until I fed BOTH Megabee patties and BeeSweet with HBH. A few went big, but not most of my colonies. My average colony populations maxed out in early summer above 3 standard brood boxes with brood in them, often 24 standard 9-1/8" deep frames of brood with usually 8 frames in the bottom and middle boxes solid brood, nothing else.

Megabee and BeeSweet in combination with top-notch localized queens is a good formula.

Looks like Roland may have your answer. I'll tuck that into my hat for next season and keep the combs fresh. Thank you, Roland!
 
#43 ·
I was able to get Hive A to consume an extra gallon of syrup, which, for that hive, is probably equivalent to 2 pounds.

In addition, I added 2 full frames of honey.

In the brief period I was in the hive, I noticed uncapped brood.
 
#44 · (Edited)
<<<<
Long story short, I'm feeding hive A, and Hive B. Both are about 10lbs underweight. Using 1/2 gallon feeders, one right after another, without more than a couple of hours between refills. 2:1 syrup.
Hive A has gained 8lbs after roughly 3 gallons of feed. Hive B has gained 8lbs after 1 gallon of feed.
WTF is going on here? No, the feeders aren't leaking. I'm losing my patience (and losing warm weather). >>>>

Huh, not gaining weight despite feed going away - a gallon of 2:1 feed is about 8 lbs...
1) robbing (covered already)...
2) just leaking out. Ruled out...
3) no way they are eliminating it as waste as fast as they are taking it!!!! If they are using the sugar syrup to feed brood, then.... the hive will still gain weight. Brood are made of lots of water! But perhaps... not as much weight if they are still feeding brood. So this may be playing a role. So, feed 16 lbs (2 gallons), gain 8 lbs... just guessing here.
4) losing bees, as in, winter bees were dying off. Perhaps hive A lost winter bees after hive B already did. It does not cost the bees a lot to check the cluster size; this is the point where PA (and OH) are at only winter bees; summer bees have died off. Worth noting/comparing cluster size.

Just a though - I wonder if hive A swarmed late, and are still building up? A younger queen will push broodrearing later than an older queen. And keep summer bees longer.

At any rate, it's all about having enough stores for winter, right? some thoughts below...

I have found that the ratio of honey to bees is more important that weight for gauging whether I'm in the green or the red for honey stores. So, if a deep has only 5 frames covered with bees, then they should have 5 additional frames with honey beyond what is covered. For NE OH overwintering, to calibrate. That's just an example - and we know that strong 5 frame nucs with 2 stories (10 total frames) do fine for overwintering.

Not that the OP has only 5 frames covered with bees!!!! just using numbers to anchor things.

So, if I am below the number of honey frames I want, I will put on a block of sugar - like, 10 lbs at a time - on a box with a mesh screen bottom, big enough holes the bees can climb up. Lots of ways to make the block - https://www.honeybeesuite.com/no-cook-candy-board-recipe-for-feeding-winter-bees/ - for a recipe.

Every winter is a bit of a leap of faith for me. ;/ but so far, with overwintering deeps, long hives/top bar hives, and Dadant extra-deep frame hives, that principle of the ratio of 1 part bees: 1 part honey frames has held true.
 
#46 ·
....Dadant extra-deep frame hives...
Trish,
Care to share few pics and notes on your current Dadants?
In the "Horizontal hive" area be great.
Thanks!

PS: I still have a full box of Dadant frames unused - still flip-flopping;
(converted 10 into my own format for testing - they work fine - but every little thing takes time).
 
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