Fall Feeding

[Sheepless]

A little background: it's my 4th year of beekeeping, but lost all 4 hives last winter...so it's a start-over year. They have done well...I made up two late splits in July, and took off a total of 6 supers of honey from 4 hives in August. We've had constant rainy weather since, so I haven't had a chance to do a full inspection. I did start feeding them right away, 2:1 syrup in baggie feeder for the 4 original hives, hive-top feeders for the late splits.

I replaced the baggies on Friday morning...2 quarts per feeder, and I noticed that the hive-top feeder was empty so I went back with 2 gallons of syrup for those. I popped the lids to see how the baggies were doing, and was surprised to see that they had drained 2 quarts in 24 hours. I've had trouble getting hives to take syrup in the past, but I'm using Honey-B-Healthy this year.

So my question: is there such a thing as feeding too much syrup? Or should I pour it to them and let them fill up? I would expect first frost around October 15.

2nd question: should I be doing anti-swarming steps? Like checkerboarding the deeps? Thanks in advance!

[Some Day]

How far north in Iowa?  What type of hive bodies are your hives?  Are you using one deep, two deeps, three mediums?  Are they 8 frame or 10 frame equipment?  Are all of the frames drawn comb or is there a mix of undrawn frames in the hives also?  Are the bees Italian?

Why do you think you lost all 4 hives last year?  Did they starve or did mites over run them?  How heavy are the hives now?

[Sheepless]

I could throw a rock and hit I-80; near Iowa City.

This year I'm running 2 deeps, 10 frame. I bought 5 frame nucs this year, Carnolians, and had 100% drawn comb to give them. I also gave them each about 5 frames of honey from last year, fed between apple bloom and when white clover started. So they got off to a good start. Obviously I took some deep frames away from them in July when I did splits.

I'm not sure what the hives are weighing now, but when I took honey off the deeps were light. I left each hive with 2 deeps and 1 super...I would like to go into winter with that all filled. They are 100% drawn comb, but on average I left them with 5 frames of uncapped honey/nectar and 5 empty frames in the supers. Of course the late splits are not that far along, but at this point they have the first deep filled, I gave them a super half-filled with honey from the other hives, and plan on adding a second super ASAP. They are building up fast...like I said, they sucked down 2 gallons of 2:1 syrup in a week.

Why did I lose hives last year? They had plenty of honey. I treated the hives 3x with oxalic acid vaporized, in August.  I really think it was the weather. We had a week of nearly 50F weather, and the next day it went to 0F with high winds for 3 days. I don't think they had enough time to cluster when the temperature dropped. The majority of people in my beekeeping club lost 100% of their hives, so I wasn't the only one.

Good question, I appreciate you wanting details.

[Some Day]

Thanks for the answers. 

I would not checker board the hives.  I would feed heavily 2:1 now to give them time to cure the syrup so they do not have extra dampness in the hives for winter. I would also give them a protein/pollen type patty to supplement the natural pollen.  I would do a mite test using the young brood bees on the brood frames.  I use an alcohol wash on about 300 bees.  I would use a different mite treatment right now other than OAV. Actually I start my mite treatments in August.  Apiguard or Apivar is what I use now that there are still capped brood in the hives.  I use OAV as a clean up in December and February as a clean up on the mites.

I am about 50 miles south of you.  I went into winter last year with 8 hives and had seven survive.  One of my friends went into winter with 17 hives and only treated with OAV in the fall.  He lost all 17 hives.  I have another friend that treats her hives like I do and she had 41 hives of 43 survive last year.  She is about 60 miles straight west of you.

I do not wrap my hives, but I do have top entrances to allow for air flow.  I also put a shim and use the mountain camp method of feeding dry sugar over newspaper on top of the hive under the lid.

I am sure that you will get 12 more suggestions from 10 other beekeepers.

[tedh]

Can't disagree with any of that.  Except the pollen patty.  My understanding is that pollen sub is used in the early spring to build up bee numbers (hive strenght) earlier.  The queens should be slowing down at this time of year, not ramping up.  Although, it wouldn't surprise me to be incorrect  .  Ted

[Some Day]

The reason I recommend pollen patties is that my area has been in a severe drought this year.  My queens shut down brood production in late July.  These next brood cycles will be the winter bees that must survive until spring.  All of the bees you see today will be dead before spring.  We have finally have some rain here in the past week.  So there is some pollen coming in now.

[tedh]

There's been a good deal of pollen coming in here too, over the last couple of days.  Golden rod and sunflower type plant (Jerusalem Artichoke?) is in full swing.

Interesting that your queens shut down.  Remind me, what breed of bees do you have Some Day?

[Some Day]

My bees are feral survivor mutts.  I have a few that I have replaced the queens with Minnesota Hygenic, some with Italian queens from Lappes, some with local survivor queen mutts from Ellen Bell here in Iowa and some that are home grown queens that the hives have made them selves.

All of my bees are from cut outs, swarm captures and splits from the swarms and cut outs.

[tedh]

Hmmm.  My bees (queens) didn't shut down but they did get really mean.  Andy Jeffrey(?), the state dude, even commented on their "attitude".

[Some Day]

Andy Joseph.

I probably should say that my queens restricted or curbed their laying, not completely shut down.

[Sheepless]

Thanks for chiming in, Ted. My neighborhood has copious amounts of goldenrod, and pollen is coming into the hive, so I'm not concerned about protein. Thanks to both of you for the suggestions.

[LazyBkpr]

LOL, the guy with two first names.

   When you FEED UP for the winter, pay attention to the hive. You WANT them to pack it away, but you don't want them to litterally FILL every cell with syrup. They need room for a small brood area. I have seen people feed the bees right out of a place to live, so just use a bit of common sense.  two deeps needs to have the top deep full and the side frames full before mid october. Three mediums need the top two boxes mostly full with a couple of the side frames in the bottom deep filled, leaving enough room to cluster and raise small amounts of brood.
  Iowa City?  We have probably met at some point. Used to ride up there with Tim Wilbanks for the meetings.

[tecumseh]

the first thing I would suggest is think about feeding 1 to 1 as long as the temperature is mild to warm.  At your location you would want to have as many young bees in the box as possible and thinner syrup should assist in doing that.  As the weather cools then think about feeding 2 to 1 to add weight to the hive.  In most places much about winter survival is about weight, weight, and wait < food resources and patience are both required.

Can you feed too much (original question)?  Why yes certainly you can with the trick being as the bears said about soup... 'not too hot and not too cold but just right.".  Excessive feeding can plug the brood nest which can (and will here) create the situation where the queen has no place to lay < the consequence of this is no new young bees in the box and the potential for swarming at a time when a hive should never swarm.

Checkerboarding... one of several silly ideas I have read about in my 5 decades of keeping bees.  Sadly this idea is fraught with harm to the new beekeeper and their bees.... the author cooked himself with me when he told me directly...'I could not sell the idea to commercial beekeeper and could not sell the idea to academic beekeepers so novice beekeepers are my last potential audience'.  I would guess everyone needs a plan even if the plan is fatally flawed...

[riverbee]

"Checkerboarding... one of several silly ideas I have read about in my 5 decades of keeping bees.  Sadly this idea is fraught with harm to the new beekeeper and their bees.... the author cooked himself with me when he told me directly...'I could not sell the idea to commercial beekeeper and could not sell the idea to academic beekeepers so novice beekeepers are my last potential audience'.  I would guess everyone needs a plan even if the plan is fatally flawed..."

thank you tecumseh.

[tecumseh]

Well thank ya' Riverbee...

I should add here I have no problems with new ideas as long as they work.  However when you have a large number of folks come to you and quietly tell you the problems they had with this process someone needs to point out the potential downside < all of these were new beekeepers and were embarrassed to admit what had happened.

I should say here that one standard early spring manipulation of 'opening up the brood nest' which is similar in what you are trying to accomplish (but in no way represents the same problems or risk as checker boarding).  It basically is primarily done in the bottom box and basically means you remove any impediments in the early spring to brood nest expansion (horizontally or as I said before ONLY in the bottom box).