[Akademee]

I wouldn't be too worked up over open feeding bee death. In a healthy hive, 1000+ bees die every day, almost all of them foragers. You normally don't see this since they spread themselves out over dozens of square miles. But if you open feed and they all go to that specific location, they will die in a concentrated spot and it looks like a massacre.

 

[JWPalmer]

You will figure out how to keep the bees from drowning in the honey. Don't worry too much about the deaths that do occur. Like Akademee pointed out, you are seeing a concentrated number in a single location. Bet they are pretty much hairless old foragers that would have died anyway. At least that is my observation from open feeding.

 

[Jack Grimshaw]

The problem is that when you set out any honey near your hives during a nectar dearth,you create a feeding frenzy and intense robbing.
Not just foragers die!!
The robber bees try to gain access to all hives and the resulting battles will kill house bees.Weaker colonies can be stripped of thousands of bees and all of their honey stores.
You will also create very defensive bees that can sting unsuspecting bystanders,livestock and pets.

 

[clyderoad]

I agree Jack, it's the change in the behavior of the bees that is more concerning.
Behavior towards one another, other colonies, equipment, pets and people and more. They are in 'hunting' mode for limited resources this time of year, and they are not nice about it as opposed to the 'collector' mode mentality of nectar flow season and abundant resources.

 

[SeaCucumber]

I put a frame of nectar near my 5 hives to start open feeding. It worked, and I brought the lure to my feeders (with 174 lbs sugar). Lots of bees died outside the feeders. Feeding took 4-5 days. There was no robbing.

 

[Gray Goose]

I have found the bees are "aggressive/rough" on open set wet combs. Ove a hive they clean and do some small repair as "prep for use" they think it will be theirs , as apposed to open to do whatever.

I do feed the cappings in a Jet sled away from the bees to let them get the honey back out


GG

 

[Gir]

If you place a liberal amount of pine shavings on top of honey, you'll have zero bee deaths.

 

[username00101]

I extracted the remainder of my fall honey this past weekend.
Left the honey supers out the next day for the bees to lick clean.
That was mistake #1.
They did not leave it alone till dark. And then they just found the nearest outdoor light and clustered around that all night. And all over the wall near the light.
I brought The supers in at around 10:00 and had to shake the bees off it.
For the next 2 days after supers were put away and bees were not touching them they were hovering around where I had them set up. Finally gave up after 2 days.

Mistake # 2.
Wife’s mistake not mine.
Today she found my tote of what was left of the wax cappings and what I dumped out from the bottom of the extractor. I had planned to drain off the honey and clean it up but got busy doing other things. But it was sealed up in an airtight tote. So it wasn’t hurting anyone.
She brought it out and put it right in front of the hives.
I’m pretty sure 5,000 bees died today.
They were all stuck together in clumps of sticky honey and where the honey was pooled they drowned.

I will not be doing that again.
I will stick to hive top feeding and will just clean up the equipment myself next time instead of getting the bees to do it.

sounds like your wife owes you an apology.

 

[beechet]

After I think 6 yrs of beeking I still sometimes think about how little I seem to KNOW so TIFIW but why not but the frames back in the hives on that first issue and as far as the feeding back the honey on the extractor I never notice much of a problem, I use a rubber spatula from the kitchen and get it mostly all out into the bucket before taking it out in the yard which is a good ways from the hives.

 

[e-spice]

I've experienced that same tough lesson. You'd think bees know everything there is to know about honey but they'll march right out into a lake of it and drown.

 

[kilocharlie]

When doing cut-outs, I place a #8 hardware cloth screen lid over a large, shallow plastic tote. The comb chunks go on top, the liquid honey drains down inside where the bees cannot drown, and the bees that get sticky on the chunks of wet combs get cleaned by their dry friends.

It works where there is only one colony present, not in robbing conditions.

 

[ericweller]

After I think 6 yrs of beeking I still sometimes think about how little I seem to KNOW so TIFIW but why not but the frames back in the hives on that first issue and as far as the feeding back the honey on the extractor I never notice much of a problem, I use a rubber spatula from the kitchen and get it mostly all out into the bucket before taking it out in the yard which is a good ways from the hives.

I used to put wet supers back on the hives but it was a huge PITA to clear the bees off of them a second time. Plus, the bees start filling the wet frames with the honey they lick off the frames. With a few hives, it is not a problem to clear the bees from the frames but a few dozen hives is very time consuming.
Now, I open feed the wet supers a small distance from the hives. I put a container under the supers to catch the wax that gets torn up as the supers are cleaned.

 

[LarryBud]

In mid August, I had harvested 5 out 7 10 frame medium supers on two hives, the 2 on top weren't yet 60% capped and were left on the hive. After extracting, I put a single super back on top of the one left behind, under the inner cover and the girls cleaned them out, moving some of the honey down to the one left behind, I continued to add another a week later when the fall flow started and a few weeks ago pulled all 5 off, harvesting around another 1oo pounds or so. The did add comb over September and now, in my first year, have 70 frames of white comb for next year. I'm anew bee so it all guessing, got luck this year. Now hoping to get through the winter. Filtered out all of the capping into a 5 gallon pail in the kitchen and most of it was recoverable, what's left is being held over for emergency winter feed.

 

[DanielD]

The only time I have had bees stay with an extracted super or wet cappings after dark is when it was a cool evening. They will gather the honey in the supers till it's too dark and fly home. If it's too cool by that late time, they will stay put till morning. Or so it seems.

I have done that drowning bee thing myself. I don't do anything with honey puddles anymore, and it doesn't take much of a puddle. I do put cappings out in a tote or bowl and they will burrow down into it to clean out all the honey.