I had thought about giving them some syrup, but the temps here in the daytime are high 50's to high 60's, but at night going back down to high 20's to low 30's. We still have potential to get cold, nasty weather, with snow into May. I wont give them any syrup till night time temps get higher consistently, which will probably be early April, maybe March, depending on several factors. They do have sugar bricks in their hive, and have access to water close to their hives, so I figure that is good enough for now, and I'm giving them pollen sub, powder form, to keep them out of my hen scratch and the sawdust in my horse stalls.

 

Why are you feeding? Do your hives have sufficient stores? If so, then don't feed them. Let them grow with the nectar that is available in the natural environment. Feeding bees syrup they don't need in January does nothing for them but get them all confused and get them in swarm mode. If they have sufficient food in Spring, don't feed them syrup then either. Basically, once you get a hive built up in the first year, then you don't feed it unless it needs food.

Also, if they don't have sufficient stores, don't feed syrup until it's no longer winter. (I'm not sure where you are in Texas, but unless you are down South, then its still "winter.") Feed them dry sugar on the top bars or candy/fondant if you like to cook. They don't need extra moisture in the hives right now.

 

It sounds like Neil has given you some excellent advice. You do not need to plug up the hive with sugar water.
I think the most common reasons given about feeding at 50* or below is, for one, the bees do not take the syrup and secondly it is reckoned that the cold syrup would act like a heat sink in the hive sucking up the heat and not allowing the girls to keep the cluster warm.
I believe that it is possible to work both ways with an internal/frame feeder that the syrup would hold some of the heat gained during the warmer daytime temps and the bees would take the syrup when the conditions were right. You could experiment to determine what works best for your particular apiary's micro-climate, that's what I like to do.

 

In my opinion, the temperature of the syrup is the key issue, not the air temperature. Syrup temperature change is likely to lag behind air temperature change.

Once the temperature of the syrup drops below about 50 degrees F, the bees will have difficulty taking syrup. Cold syrup cools their bodies, and they start to lose muscle control at about 50 degrees F.

This study measures the temperature of the bee's bodies, rather than the air temperature, but does support the idea that if the bee's thorax temperature falls below 9-11 degrees C (about 50 degrees F), they lose muscle control, can no longer shiver to generate heat and will fall off the cluster.

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/206/2/353.full.pdf

If the bee is not clustered, but consumes cold syrup from an in-hive feeder, things might get very awkward if that bee cannot get back to the cluster.

 

If the bee is not clustered, but consumes cold syrup from an in-hive feeder, things might get very awkward if that bee cannot get back to the cluster.

I agree, hopefully the bees would not be taking the syrup if it is too cold. Thank you for the link, now I understand the conditions that cause the bees not to take cold syrup.

What I was meaning to project is that the syrup might have an opportunity to both stay warmer and to provide some warmth if it were inside of the hive as a frame feeder rather than one of the hive top configurations. What are some thoughts on this theory?

 

These were nucs 5 on 5, I guess I did say hives.

Didn't think about it acting as a cold sink. But not feeding enough to make the become syrup/honey bound, just to stimulate brood production. Was adding like a half pint every other day.

Sitting this far south main flow starts near the end of February and I caught swarms last year in early march.

I know a rather large commercial crew in the area uses syrup all winter long. Watched them filling feeders in their outyards the last two years before loading up for California. Was thinking if they are doing it, maybe I should.

 

Good advice here from Rader and Neil!

 

I am trying salvage nukes low in reserves. Syrup feeding has promoted warmer and more dispersed clusters than in hives not fed.

As for reason they do not consume the fluid when temperatures below 50 F, I think the colonies have little trouble handing the syrup, rather they colony does not have interest at the lower temperates.

 

> ... hopefully the bees would not be taking the syrup if it is too cold.

From post #1 ...

I put syrup in feeder in several hives and most are doing good, but two of them looked like they tried mass suicide events when the temperatures dropped into the 40s.

If suicide bees are {presumably} in (or around) the feeder, it may be that after consuming cold syrup the bees were too cold to work their muscles to properly get back out and into the cluster.

 

>

If suicide bees are {presumably} in (or around) the feeder, it may be that after consuming cold syrup the bees were too cold to work their muscles to properly get back out and into the cluster.

Had not considered this issue and looking closely at what I did, it likely was the cause. Will remember this information come next year. I was playing with varying amounts of syrup in the feeding. A few of them I feed very little syrup to, about 1/2 cup maximum and they seemed to consume it daily, so it apparently didn't have time to chill overnight. Looking at my records it was only the 2 hives I dumped more than about 1 or 1 1/2 cups of syrup in that had the mass suicides.

The ones feed with slight amounts of syrup are really cranking out brood and now have decent numbers of foragers bringing in pollen and some nectar.

We still have not dropped into freezing temperatures for a while and been bouncing into the 60s and even touched the 70s. I am beginning think here on the Texas Coast we have to worry as much about the need for them to form tight clusters as they do just north of here, but these ladies are sure consuming lots of honey from stores on these semi cool days.

 

"These were nucs 5 on 5, I guess I did say hives.

In this case would a good option be to put syrup directly into empty drawn frames? I have seen some recent activity from another member using a sprayer type of set up to do so.

 

I was late insulating some of my hives this year, it was about 11pm with the temp @5*F and falling fast (predicted to go well below zero, which it did); when I ripped the top and inner covers off one hive I discovered that I had forgotten to remove the fumagilin-treated syrup baggies (yeah, I was late with that, too). I was trying to move very quickly because my fingers were getting very numb and it was only after I whipped the baggies off into the snow that my brain absorbed the fact that they were still liquid and there had been bees on them, feeding, and I probably should have left them there. Obviously, it had been still warm enough in there that they were willing to take it. (I guess no one told them that they were only supposed to heat the cluster.)

 

Granulated sugar on the top bars is what you need to feed in winter, but I'm not sure what sort of box you would use to cover it in a nuc except a cut down nuc. You could make a candy board inside a frame. A beekeeper in my bee club actually removes two frames (one directly above the other) and inserts long candy boards that are the length of two deeps, right in the middle of the brood nest. That way, the cluster is always on food. I don't know what that does as far as messing up the brood area when they start raising brood. However, she says it works for her. I've never tried it, so I don't recommend it.

 

>but I have to ask is that day time temperatures or night temperatures that reach 50.

Niether. The syrup reaches 50 F... If it's 30 F at night and 60 F in the day it probably never reaches 50 F If it's 45 F at night and 70 F in the day it probably will reach 50 F.