[grozzie2]

They use hardly any honey. It's hard to tell what they're using vs. margin of error week to week. It looks like 8lbs for big hives and 2 lbs for small hives per month.

I kept a hive on a scale for years, electronic scale took a measurement every 5 minutes and logged it to a database. Never saw 8lb decrease in a month thru the winter, much much less. The real honey consumption doesn't happen over the winter, it begins when they start raising brood in the spring. I would see that hive go from October thru till mid February, total decrease about 10lb, sometimes hard to say because of snow, but it would normally be 10lb lighter early Feb with the snow all melted than it was in October before snow arrived. Then by 3rd week of February the decrease would start to get noticeable, and would accelerate thru March. Not unusual to see a 40lb drop thru March.

Most folks doing fall feeding are under the mistaken impression they are putting on 'winter stores', when in fact you are putting on food for the early spring brood rearing that happens before there is anything available.