Well, this must be a dearth

[Bill W.]

Most of my hives had been doing pretty well up to about two weeks ago and putting away a good amount of nectar.

A week ago I noticed they were uncapping and feeding out of capped cells, so I figured this is probably it for this year, removed the supers, and headed to Costco to buy sugar.  This week almost every cell has been opened.  That is a lot of progress down the tubes very quickly.  Very different than last year, when the bees slowed down in August, opened up some honey in the brood nest, and then packed it back in during the Fall.  They just about cleared the cupboards this time.  I'm going to be making a lot of sugar syrup this year.

[annette]

I understand Bill because this same thing has happened to me as well. I was getting my hopes up for some honey as they filled up a whole super, then 2 weeks later, everything is uncapped and drying up. I have already started to feed one hive.

Annette

[Bill W.]

Luckily, I took the supers off, so I do have some honey in the freezer.  However, given how quickly they have used up the stores in the brood nest, I may be better off feeding the honey back to them than putting it in jars.  I figure I'll keep the frames frozen and see if we develop much of a Fall flow before deciding.

[annette]

Yes, good luck on that Fall flow. I am so counting on that flow right now!!!!

[Kathyp]

try walmart or food for less for sugar...or any discount grocery store.  costco was expensive.  also, stock up at the holidays.  they usually have sugar on sale for baking.

[AndersMNelson]

I haven't seen any honey this year yet :(  I'm tempted to start feeding, but the hope for a good flow this month is stronger.  Has anyone in southeastern Virginia experienced a dearth, or is it just me?

[millermann1972]

very dry around this part of Virginia, hives done great with popular, sourwood but golden rod flow has been off a bunch. been feeding young hives for a couple of weeks. feast or famine i guess.

[HAB]

Yeah, things were looking good here.  Then the dearth and robbing.  Now back to square one.

[1of6]

I can't figure this one out either.  My colonies are arguing over it as well apparently.  My Russians are asking for more supers.  My mongrel hive did extremely well, but has now stalled.  My late-summer nucs are building well and are ready for second-story 10-frame boxes.  My boomer colonies which I reduced from three-deep brood chambers to two are doing so-so, but provided a lot of good nucs this year.  Probably would have done a lot more had I not been peeling nucs off of them this summer.  Others are so-so as well.  Very inconsistent.  Some are building a lot of white wax, and others are not.  Some aren't touching their supers, and others can't get enough supers.  It seems like a very high-overhead year.  Almost as if the smaller colonies really did store more than that bigger colonies - I guess a lot of time spent cooped up at home tends to empty out the pantry pretty well.

I am satisfied with this year's queens so far though!

[contactme_11]

We've had a crazy amount of rain here lately, which has really been hindering my hives collecting. They had started to uncap some of the honey to feed. I was really starting to get worried. Now that some better weather is here I can see them bringing back pollen like crazy.

[Brian D. Bray]

Most of my hives had been doing pretty well up to about two weeks ago and putting away a good amount of nectar.

A week ago I noticed they were uncapping and feeding out of capped cells, so I figured this is probably it for this year, removed the supers, and headed to Costco to buy sugar.  This week almost every cell has been opened.  That is a lot of progress down the tubes very quickly.  Very different than last year, when the bees slowed down in August, opened up some honey in the brood nest, and then packed it back in during the Fall.  They just about cleared the cupboards this time.  I'm going to be making a lot of sugar syrup this year.

Yes, that sounds like dearth to me, which means it's time to feed.

That's what I found after the unusually cold spring we had, plus they had eaten all the brood.   When I checked last week mine had 2-3 nediunm boxes of uncapped stores so I'm probably in better shape at the moment as they never did crank back up to full brood chambers again after the near startvation.  In fact they only have 3-4 frames of brood total in each hive/   I'll check in the next day or 2, I might have to start feeding again to get them through the winter.  I've worked at nursing them back to a sustainable size all summer so don't want to lose the now. 

[purvisgs]

I never knew that I had so many feral bees around a new yard where I have a few nucs -

Lid of a pretty weak 5 frame nuc was half way of (blown off or animals?), I noticed lots of darker bees in the opening, looked to be pretty full of bees,  then about 30 minutes after closing them up and reducing the entrance to a single beespace, there was a ball of maybe 1/2 lb of bees trying to get in where the lid had been cracked...

yes, this is a pretty good sign of a dearth here in WA... 

reduced all the other nuc's entrances, hoping for the best on this one, will inspect tomorrow and probably have to move and give them a few frames of honey

(also noticed the neighbor decided to cut his nice field (maybe 6 acres) of dandelions (2nd or 3rd flush) just before they started to open up...