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41 Posts
Hi,
I would like to winter my bees with honey, but cant find very much knowledge how it should be done. Here in finland i dont know anybody who is using honey for wintering. Actually all the books discourage this and teach that sugar syrup is the only safe way for wintering. I understand that in northen countries there is extra challence because bees are brooding till early winter when there is no nectar coming anymore. So the problem is that broodnest will stay empty even if there is lots of capped honey above. So how to get the broodnest filled with honey? Ofcourse i could feed them their own honey back after harvest but thats too much work because one reason why i want to winter with honey is that its too much trouble to bring feeders and make syrup etc. Could it be possible that if they have plenty of honey above that they could uncap the honey and backfill the broodnest with it? Or if they dont uncap should i uncap one box for them and give for feeding that way? So anyway if i have undertand correctly its not enough to just leave couple of boxes of honey above winter cluster. Anyone has experience of this? Especially nortern beekeepers help would be appreciated. You see im allready preparing to winter!!! Thanks.
I would like to winter my bees with honey, but cant find very much knowledge how it should be done. Here in finland i dont know anybody who is using honey for wintering. Actually all the books discourage this and teach that sugar syrup is the only safe way for wintering. I understand that in northen countries there is extra challence because bees are brooding till early winter when there is no nectar coming anymore. So the problem is that broodnest will stay empty even if there is lots of capped honey above. So how to get the broodnest filled with honey? Ofcourse i could feed them their own honey back after harvest but thats too much work because one reason why i want to winter with honey is that its too much trouble to bring feeders and make syrup etc. Could it be possible that if they have plenty of honey above that they could uncap the honey and backfill the broodnest with it? Or if they dont uncap should i uncap one box for them and give for feeding that way? So anyway if i have undertand correctly its not enough to just leave couple of boxes of honey above winter cluster. Anyone has experience of this? Especially nortern beekeepers help would be appreciated. You see im allready preparing to winter!!! Thanks.