[Jerry T Indiana]

Question.................
I placed my bees in TBH last Wednesday and the queen is out. My only concern is they seem to not be not feeding on much of the 1-1. My first 1-1 batch I added oils so yesterday I made another 1-1 no oils as I have two jars inside, I replaced one. I even put some in a dish on top of the hive... From what I read I should have seen an amount gone by this time. They are hanging around the hive when its warm out. Yesterday when I checked the queen cage, they were all clustered together at the front. I had one heck of a time getting the bars back in since the queen cage was at the front bottom. It was cool seeing how they were all holding on to each other as I tried to separate some of the bars to get an opening large enough for my hand in to retrieve the queen cage.

 

[drlonzo]

According to many sources the bees will only feed on 1:1 when it is 55 deg F or warmer. That is the liquid itself. As for your TBH do you have a follower board in that reduces the size of the cavity they are using? If they can't keep the area warm, they can't make comb, and they won't take the syrup.

 

[Jerry T Indiana]

I do, I have 10 1.25 bars in then the follower the feeders are behind the follower board with an access hole at the top of the follower board. I also have a false back behind the feeders.. That is good to know about the temp of the liquid... thanks as I have never read that before.. !!

 

[Joseph Clemens]

Five or six top bars should be more than enough to start a package on, but ten should work. Actually I'm fairly sure the lowest temperature the syrup can be, for the bees to be able to take it, is 50F, but I like 55F even better. It's good to warm it to about 100F, then give it back to them, early in the morning. It should then stay warm enough for most of the day. But anytime you think the syrup may be too cold, is a good time to warm it up, or refresh it with warmer syrup.

I hope you managed to remove the empty queen cage. It isn't too much of a problem if it's on the bottom of the hive, but eventually it will interfere with comb building, even there.

 

[mmiller]

I used to feed my TBH's behind the follower board. The problem is cooler temps. Now I open the brood area enough to place the feeder jar inside the brood nest next to the follower. They take the feed much better.