BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER > DOWN UNDER BEEKEEPING
Feeding bees for winter
BeeMaster2:
I blame it on the bee movie. 😊
Pazuzu:
--- Quote from: StefanBohm on May 03, 2021, 07:33:49 am ---two small colonies with just 1 brood box each, about 5 frames of bees and no honey.
--- End quote ---
Are these nucs or late season splits? I?ll avoid splitting late in the season so they?ll be strong enough by winter. I?ll feed them until they are strong and if you have honey you can spare from other hives that?s better than sugar. It wasn?t too bad for me here.
What's their pollen stores like?
--- Quote from: StefanBohm on May 05, 2021, 08:10:23 am ---I was on a local WA beekeepers Facebook group with some 2000+ members but it was full of nasty and unfriendly people. Not a great beekeeping community here in Perth unfortunately.
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Lol, so true. :cool: :grin: Applies to Facebook in general.
Skeggley:
Yep poor season across the board here from all accounts.
Beekeeping here in SW Aus, like most places, is site specific and you can?t beat local experience. Suburb local that is.
Generally over winter there is still forage available and enough fine days for the bees to get out and about so feeding isn?t usually necessary.
Small colony?s ability to maintain temperatures and defend against pests is an issue in our winter especially in large boxes so if possibly reduce the colony to a nuc box to give the bees better survival opportunity and keep an eye on the weight by hefting the box often and feed if necessary.
For the record I?ll finish up with about 15kg from 2 out of 4 colony?s this season before removing the supers for winter compared with 20+kg per hive last season. Not much when you compare it with others around the world and commercially not viable but still satisfying for a stationary back yard beekeeper. (And the best honey in the world to boot. ;))
crispy:
Your right there skeggley no one has complained about the honey as of yet only good reviews , the bees are very quiet over the last few days as it has been raining and cold but tommorow i expect the bees will be going bonkas bananas as the wheather is supposed to be a lot warmer .
I am going to leave the honey in the super i know some say take it all away and others say leave it there so here is my thinking if this was a hive in a tree the honey would stay with the bees early in the new season i will take all the honey and extract it all then put the stickies in for the 6 months of good weather ,i dont really know what im doing but this is my take on it .
Pazuzu:
--- Quote from: Skeggley on May 10, 2021, 09:27:29 pm ---(And the best honey in the world to boot. ;))
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LOL, I'm sure it is.
And so is mine.
And the beekeeper's down the road,
and the one across the ditch.
:cheesy:
I'm yet to come across a beekeeper that doesn't think so :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:
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