[Sickdog5]

Ok so it’s going to get cold 30’s. Pulled my feeding shim and what was left of winter patties they were like all but gone. Saw nectar in the honey super but concerned they will not have enough to get them through this cold snap. Should I give them more winter patties?

 

[rwlaw]

Probably wouldn’t hurt, the NWS’s long range forecast isn’t being nice as far as even normal temps. If they ain’t flying, they ain’t gathering nectar.
Are those winter patties that thick that you can’t just stick them under the inner cover?

 

[deepster]

I think it is quite cold here in Connecticut, in the 40s plus quite windy, I prematurely celebrated survival of my hives through the winter, but most of them made it with low in numbers and due to the cold haven't been able to bust in numbers. unless real nectar flow is delayed due to cold this is not going to be a bad honey year for me!

 

[Schultz]

Very good! What do you anticipate your average per hive will be?

 

[aran]

yes keep feed on them. I have winter and pollen patties on all the hives.
Going to be mid 40s here around lunch time and i will get out and check feed levels.
Dropping down below 30 here tonight.
Quite a few days of rain coming in the next week or two as well so not ideal foraging weather at all.

 

[deepster]

Schultz
How many frames per hive? I estimate half the hives I have, about six hives, are no more than 4 frames of bees, in some I see huge caped brood, however if it takes 40 days for a bee to become a forager most of them will miss the beginning of nectar flow unless the cold postpones the flow!

 

[Sickdog5]

Probably wouldn’t hurt, the NWS’s long range forecast isn’t being nice as far as even normal temps. If they ain’t flying, they ain’t gathering nectar.
Are those winter patties that thick that you can’t just stick them under the inner cover?

. Yea I can make them so they fit under the inner cover.

 

[BattenkillJB]

it has been damp and a bit chilly here in upstate New York. My observation is that weather permitting the bees are out in force and have been bringing in pollen for about three weeks now.I was surprised to see how much of the hives are filled with capped brood and almost no stores of any kind. I think they are focussed on this batch of brood to build up their numbers. your concern was about feeding but I have kept the winter covers on my hives because I noticed chilled brood when I removed one cover. I promptly put it back. I wish it would stop raining so much I am looking forward to some fly fishing one of these days.

 

[ny12569]

I am a little farther south in NY than you probably about 50 -60 miles temps here have been warm enough days that foraging is taking place. I have been feeding 1 to 1 sugar syrup and my two 3 lb packages have been consuming about 1 qt per 3 days each of these two hives consist or 5 previously drawn out frames and 5 waxed x2 new frames. I also have a walk away split that I made from my surviving winter hive which was located at a different location. All 3 hives had mega bee pollen patties on them. The two hives that were packages consumed the Pattie within approx 10 days. The walk away split same frame make up as the others I noticed was not really being consumed but on the 7th day I noticed that the Pattie was squirming with some type of larva. I am assuming a SHB larva so I removed to the burn barrel and promptly torched. I did not replace the Pattie. I was wondering has anyone else seen any type of larva feeding on the pollen patties since these are pre made I was wondering if there is something I could add or possibly make my own to prevent any type of larva from feeding on the patties. I have not really looked very deeply in this hive as it is a walk away split and really do not want to disturb any more than to swap out feeding jars. I will be putting in beetle blasters this weekend, but I am only assuming that this is a small hive beetle situation. If anyone has had any of these same scenarios or knows what those larva might have been if not SHB please let me know. Stupid me I did not take a pic before I torched but the larva were no bigger than a 1 or2 day old bee egg. As always any helpful input is appreciated

 

[ny12569]

As an added note my hive stand is 30 inches off the ground built out of pressure treated lumber ( reclaimed from the kids old swing set) and I also have rolled roofing under the stand as well as 3 ft in front of and behind it so should be hard for battles to get to ground.

 

[wildbranch2007]

The walk away split same frame make up as the others I noticed was not really being consumed but on the 7th day I noticed that the Pattie was squirming with some type of larva. I am assuming a SHB larva so I removed to the burn barrel and promptly torched. I did not replace the Pattie.

sounds like SHB, only cure I have found is put out feeders with the stuff they sell that is a powder, you can also put some on the inner covers, so far SHB haven't touched that, but the bees didn't use the stuff on the inner cover as much the stuff in the feeders.

 

[BattenkillJB]

Please see my recent post called Small Hive Beetle Thoughts. This April wintering over Small Hive Beetle larvae started to appear. There are some very clever traps using old CD cases and cleaning cloth on You Tube. I brought up the fact that plastic frames as currently manufactured have slots and holes around the edges and those slots are ideal places for SHB to hide and wax moths to lay eggs. I discontinued using them except for honey supers. Betterbee is aware of the problem and I hope the manufacturers fix this design.