Feeding bees in the winter.

[little john]

Sounds to me as if someone has caught the "More and More" and "Faster and Faster" disease ...

In the UK, there are indeed people who give stimulant-feed to their colonies at the earliest opportunity with a view to increasing their working size prior to OSR coming into bloom - in order to then maximise the OSR-honey crop.  I fully understand the rationale for adopting that strategy, but I wouldn't want to go down that particular route myself.

I much prefer to exercise patience and wait until the bees themselves begin 'waking-up' to the start of a new season.  Any supplementary feed which may be in place prior to that time is only ever there to prevent starvation, just enough to keep the colonies ticking-over until they are able to forage for themselves.
LJ

[Acebird]

Should that be enough for them or should I attempt to feed.

Until they consume it it is enough.  If you feed syrup when there is enough you contaminate the honey with sugar.  Mountain camp as it is called is safer because they won't store sugar crystals.  They will eat it or dispose of it.  If you know the colony has one box of honey and know the weight then when the hive loses 75% of that weight you should add feed.  Stop or slow the feed down if it gains weight.  Don't feed at all if there is forage.

[bwallace23350]

In my 5 seasons of beekeeping, at every early Spring the bees need pollen (or subs) and honey (or sugar syrup) to
build up their hive population.   This all depends on your local bee environment at build up time.   If you don't feed them they
will starve once the weather fluctuate without much food reserve.   

So when they are brooding up I just keep on feeding and make early Spring splits on the booming hives.   By then the weather is
warm enough on a normal year with adequate rains from Jan to mid-April.   When the bees grow I will expand.   This is beekeeping at its best!

We start blooming out basically now. I have see dandelion and henbit blooming with the maple trees fixing to provide pollen.

[bwallace23350]

Although I provided feed last week and they took none of it.

[little john]

We start blooming out basically now. I have see dandelion and henbit blooming with the maple trees fixing to provide pollen.

Strewth - how can anyone say that locality is NOT important when considering variations in beekeeping practice ?

Weather conditions over here are insane - ten days ago we had snow falling onto frozen ground, yet only a few days after that was a 'shirt-sleeve day'.  Since then it's returned to being bl##dy cold again.  I have some raspberry canes which think spring has arrived and have started budding-up - in January !

The bees are totally confused of course, and most have consumed the lion's share of their stores already, and at least one appears to have started brooding-up (Crown Board being very warm to the touch), and so has been scoffing fondant like it's going out of fashion ...

Here's a very nice example of the fondant 'fuel-gauges' I've been using for a few years now.  They're proving very useful, and have eliminated all guess-work regarding stores:



If I saw that in early March, then I'd put another jar of something over one of the other holes, but for now I'll just keep my eye on that particular colony. 

There's just the one colony on 'life-support' right now, and that's only because it's Queen is the grandmother of a rather nice line that's been emerging.  So with some luck and TLC I might just be able to take one or two more daughters from her, come Spring - but then again she's 4 years old, and I suspect is on her last legs right now - which would go some way to explain why so many bees have deserted her in order to join a colony headed by the much younger queen living next door.
LJ

[BeeMaster2]

4 year old queen. That is impressive LJ. Our commercial beeks are replacing their queens every 6 months.
Jim

[220]

In Alabama we basically have no winter.

Just had a look at your climate and even by Australian standards it would barely qualify as a winter. Looks like you dont have one month with the average min temp below freezing and flying weather year around.

[bwallace23350]

In Alabama we basically have no winter.

Just had a look at your climate and even by Australian standards it would barely qualify as a winter. Looks like you dont have one month with the average min temp below freezing and flying weather year around.

IF it gets below 25 here everyone talks about the really hard cold snap. Anything in the teens is a once a decade thing.

[eltalia]

If it hits 12celcius here.... we all die ;-D

Bill

[220]

IF it gets below 25 here everyone talks about the really hard cold snap. Anything in the teens is a once a decade thing.

Mine arent a lot colder we do average below freezing for 2 months and regularly dip into the higher teens overnight, daytime temps are high 40's low 50's so mine can still fly as well. My cold spell coincides with a 3-4 month dearth, this year I didnt have anything of significance bllom until mid/late Sept.
Have been thinking about feeding one of my hives early to try and get them to build up and maybe get a few frames of apple blossom honey which starts mid Oct or a touch later for me.