Author Topic: 1st inspection  (Read 1675 times)

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Offline Mikey N.C.

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1st inspection
« on: February 21, 2018, 09:21:16 am »
Yesterday I did inspection on swarm catch from last year.
Bees were overwintered in 10 deep with med. on top, shim with sugar cakes. Med. box about 4 frames of half capped honey. Opened up and noticed they had eaten half of each cake, med box was full of capped honey,  10 deep box frames 5,6,7,8 had softball size capped brood on both sides at the very front near entrance,  and the rest of the frames were full of capped honey. I pulled full honey frame next to brood #4
intalled drawn comb frame, moved honey frame up , added another 10 deep with drawn frames of pollen and stores, moved med. up top. Did not at top feeder with so much honey. Did i make the decision or do the right thing.any info would be appreciated
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Offline Lburou

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Re: 1st inspection
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2018, 11:41:30 am »
Mikey, supplying my bees with sugar cakes has saved their honey stores too, so Your experience is similar if not identical to most of us feeding sugar cakes or sugar boards. 

We are coming up on the time of year when the brood chamber is going full tilt, only limited by the number of bees needed to cover and warm the brood on cold nights.  During this build up phase, bees can rapidly go through their food stores.  They use both honey and pollen to build their population in readiness for the local honey flow. 

It takes about one cell of bee bread and one cell of honey to produce one hatched bee, so they rush to gather pollen now and eat their stored honey, (or in our case, the sugar cakes), to increase their population and be ready to harvest the spring honey crop.

Bees are most likely to starve to death between now and spring when food will be available in abundance. 

It sounds like your bees are poised for a strong spring.  A mite monitoring/treatment is a good idea in a week or two.  Add a super when bees cover 8 of 10 frames in the brood chamber.    JMO :)
Lee_Burough
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Offline Lburou

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Re: 1st inspection
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2018, 11:50:25 am »
If you plan to split later in the spring, I would feed sugar syrup as soon as you can.  This will preserve/add to the remaining frames of honey.  Those frames are what you want to give a split a leg up on their journey to becoming a mature hive.  That capped honey is especially important to provide food reserves during dearth times in the summer. (Just one way to do it.)   HTH   :)

When you add the second super, you have several options.  One option is to take two drawn frames from the center of the current super and put them in the center of the new super and place it under your current super.  Or, you could checkerboard both supers to have five drawn frames and five foundations in each super.  Not exactly what Walt Wright recommended, but it has worked for me to avoid swarming and give the bees enough room to not feel crowded.  JMO   :)
Lee_Burough
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Offline Mikey N.C.

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Re: 1st inspection
« Reply #3 on: February 21, 2018, 11:59:24 am »
So you think i still need to feed with that much honey in the boxes ?
I'm worried about the other 10 deep i added if we have a cold snap in 3-4 weeks.

Offline yes2matt

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Re: 1st inspection
« Reply #4 on: February 21, 2018, 02:24:43 pm »
So you think i still need to feed with that much honey in the boxes ?
I'm worried about the other 10 deep i added if we have a cold snap in 3-4 weeks.
I learned from George Imirie' s pink pages that a tiny trickle, like a quart jar feeder with only 3 or 4 holes punched, stimulates the queen to lay but doesn't give enough to backfill the brood chamber. Use 1:1 syrup.

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Offline Lburou

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Re: 1st inspection
« Reply #5 on: February 21, 2018, 04:50:57 pm »
So you think i still need to feed with that much honey in the boxes ?
I'm worried about the other 10 deep i added if we have a cold snap in 3-4 weeks.
If you wait for the bees to cover both sides of 8 frames to add the super, you should be okay to feed all they will take - if you aren't going to split, do nothing more than the sugar cakes.  JMO   :)

When you add the second super, you have several options.  One option is to take two drawn frames from the center of the current super and put them in the center of the new super and place it under your current super.  Or, you could checkerboard both supers to have five drawn frames and five foundations in each super.  Not exactly what Walt Wright recommended, but it has worked for me to avoid swarming and give the bees enough room to not feel crowded.  JMO   :)
Lee_Burough