I am always thinking I should be helping my bee's with additional nutrition , for spring a pollen sub. like mega-be for brood production . But my bee's are bring in pollen by the basket full , there still heavy with honey , and I have some of Lauri's sugar bricks still on and they are eating them . I know its sometimes better to leave well enough alone , have I done enough or is there something else I should be thinking of .Its been one heck of a winter maybe I'm just itching to get working with the bee's .
supplements for spring build up
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My packages are two weeks old. Building comb and lots and lots of eggs and capped brood. Hardly any missed cells.
I have been using lemon grass oil, wintergreen oil, tea tree oil, and them oil mixed with my sugar syrup. 1:1
I have been using lemon grass oil, wintergreen oil, tea tree oil, and them oil mixed with my sugar syrup. 1:1
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mega agreed. im over zealous right now too. we have had a bummer winter as well.
Glock , I would have thought you would have pollen coming in by now , I know your in a cold area but I'm just east of you .Does open feeding bring in alot of bee's beside your own , any chance of spreading disease , how far away from your own hives should the feed be .
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Over on the Pee Dee and out near Manning nectar has been coming in here in SC since the temps got into the 80s. It was cool today which might have turned the flow off. We'll see what tomorrow is like.
I haven't fed anything since two weeks ago. Lots of brood and nectar ripening.
I haven't fed anything since two weeks ago. Lots of brood and nectar ripening.
I put my feeders about 20 yards from the bee yards. I am only feeding till things get rolling. The pollen should be coming in any day now and nectar I'd say 2 weeks . once pollen starts to come in no more bee pro .
As far open feeding and bringing in other bee's I don't think there's any near by . I know I am the only beekeeper for many miles.
As far as feral bees I don't think theres many out there in these parts.Happy beein.
Why do we, as humans, always think mother nature has to have our help in order to survive? By no means am I bashing, I just don't understand the human thought process many times.
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some of us live in areas bees cannot survive on their own very well.
I've been wondering if I should feed 1:1 syrup like Glock does, from a poultry waterer. I'd have to open feed because I still have quilt boxes on top.
I also have some Lauri's bricks still in the feeding rim and added some Global pollen patties late last month (still waiting on Randy Oliver's promised results from his over-winter pollen-sub trials, so I went with the Global patties as that was what I could get locally.)
My bees are slurping down around a liter of water per day from my close-in watering dish. I think they must be using it to liquify honey, right? They have access to a half acre pond about 350 feet away, too.
My daytime temps are in the 40 to barely high 50's range, night time lows in the twenties. No fresh pollen or nectar for at least another week, I think. We still have two feet of frost in the ground and some snow.
But the bees are actively flying every day. At least one the hives had foragers out 1000 feet this afternoon, but I think they found nothing (I was out in the same area and I saw nothing promising.) This Spring is extremely late; my sister's birthday was yesterday and many years I Fed-Ex her some near-to-blooming daffodils that I brought up here to NY from our Mother's VA farm. This year they haven't even appeared, yet. The ground around them is still frozen solid.
I've looked in the tops of the hives and I have 7, 6, and 5 bursting seams of bees (pretty much every seam except the farthest outer one in my reduced-sized hives.) Over the last few days they have apparently moved down into the bottom boxes if the noise there is any indication. Previously there was no noise in the lower boxes, much in the upper deeps/medium. Not it's in the whole stack.
I have no clue what the state of stores is. The boxes seemed heavy before winter. They still seem heavy; I'm a poor judge of that apparently, which is why I fed them sugar bricks all winter.
I'm not a honey collector, so I don't care if they store some syrup if it pleases them.
There's a 50-50 chance we may hit 60 F on Thursday, so I can go down in the hives and see what's what then. But should I be feeding some syrup until then? I am only coming into my first early spring with them, and if they felt like drawing out some more comb, that would be useful as I have no surplus. They weren't particularly comb-minded last summer.
I figure if I go in to town to the feed store and buy a chicken waterer then, for sure, I'll see them bringing in pollen and nectar the next day!
Thanks for your suggestions!
Enj.
I also have some Lauri's bricks still in the feeding rim and added some Global pollen patties late last month (still waiting on Randy Oliver's promised results from his over-winter pollen-sub trials, so I went with the Global patties as that was what I could get locally.)
My bees are slurping down around a liter of water per day from my close-in watering dish. I think they must be using it to liquify honey, right? They have access to a half acre pond about 350 feet away, too.
My daytime temps are in the 40 to barely high 50's range, night time lows in the twenties. No fresh pollen or nectar for at least another week, I think. We still have two feet of frost in the ground and some snow.
But the bees are actively flying every day. At least one the hives had foragers out 1000 feet this afternoon, but I think they found nothing (I was out in the same area and I saw nothing promising.) This Spring is extremely late; my sister's birthday was yesterday and many years I Fed-Ex her some near-to-blooming daffodils that I brought up here to NY from our Mother's VA farm. This year they haven't even appeared, yet. The ground around them is still frozen solid.
I've looked in the tops of the hives and I have 7, 6, and 5 bursting seams of bees (pretty much every seam except the farthest outer one in my reduced-sized hives.) Over the last few days they have apparently moved down into the bottom boxes if the noise there is any indication. Previously there was no noise in the lower boxes, much in the upper deeps/medium. Not it's in the whole stack.
I have no clue what the state of stores is. The boxes seemed heavy before winter. They still seem heavy; I'm a poor judge of that apparently, which is why I fed them sugar bricks all winter.
I'm not a honey collector, so I don't care if they store some syrup if it pleases them.
There's a 50-50 chance we may hit 60 F on Thursday, so I can go down in the hives and see what's what then. But should I be feeding some syrup until then? I am only coming into my first early spring with them, and if they felt like drawing out some more comb, that would be useful as I have no surplus. They weren't particularly comb-minded last summer.
I figure if I go in to town to the feed store and buy a chicken waterer then, for sure, I'll see them bringing in pollen and nectar the next day!
Thanks for your suggestions!
Enj.
Speaking for myself, and I'm sure others as well, if you are in business to produce honey, then its in your best interest to get your bees in a better condition to take advantage of nectar flows when they happen, not afterwards. Stimulative feeding does just that, it can bring your bees up to speed sooner than they would otherwise if depending solely on nature. I'm not a non-interventional honey producer.
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Some see kept bees as livestock, not wild selfsufficient animals, and they want to get a jump on what Mother Nature provides so they can make increase earlier than normal or natural.
I bought a number of boxes of protein patties in early March thinking my bees might benefit from having them. I ended up not using them. By the time I got here, even though temps were cool to cold, pollen was coming in and supplemental feeding was not necessary.
So, for most folks, Spring feeding may be unnecessary.
Thought I saw maple pollen being brought in Saturday, Sunday it was confirmed. Not a lot but didn't have to stand there for 3 minutes to see crocus pollen.
With the winter we've had, it wad a no brainer that I should offer them pollen patties. And I would've lost probably lost half my hives if I hadn't put sugar blocks on, it was too cold, too long for em to move around!
With the winter we've had, it wad a no brainer that I should offer them pollen patties. And I would've lost probably lost half my hives if I hadn't put sugar blocks on, it was too cold, too long for em to move around!
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