Autumn Feeding

Our experience of Feeding our bees this Autumn

A sunny day
A Miller feeder
An Ashforth feeder
28kg invert liquid feed
Wasps
Michaelmas Daisy pollen

The varroa treatment, a kind of paste that the bees apparently find tasty, has been on the hives for the requisite number of weeks so it's time to take the treatment off and start feeding.  Interestingly, each colony seems to have consumed the same quantity of the paste notwithstanding that there are vastly more G Bees than Beebettes.

So,  now we feed the bees to ensure they have enough stores for the Winter.    We have a rapid feeder for each hive but different designs  Each is made to sit on top of the inner hive.  We pour sugar syrup into the reservoir and it seeps through small slots into a separate chamber where the bees come up to access it.   We have bought invert liquid feed via the local beekeepers' club which is a ready mixed sugar syrup.   It comes in large plastic containers that we can leave in the apiary and with one per colony recommended, we can easily keep tabs on how much each colony has had.   The Authorities are imprecise about how much syrup we should provide for each colony.  There are a lot of variables to take into consideration - the number of bees in the colony, the quantity of stores they already have and how wet or cold the weather is.   We should apparently "heft" the hive, ie lift it enough to judge the quantity of stores that the bees have but as novices we will be learning as we go along.

P was official photographer so dad suited up to help.  The bees were busily going about their business and didn't take much notice of us.      I dribbled some syrup into the hive where the bees should access the feeder because, apparently, they can't smell the syrup and can take the days to find it.  Next morning, we checked to make sure the bees had found the syrup and the picture shows the Beebettes through the Perspex cover of the Ashforth feeder.  If you look carefully you can see a wasp that has somehow got into the hive. The bees showed no sign that they had noticed.

The Miller feeder has a wooden lid and we checked the G Bees were in there but didn't take it off for a photograph.

 

Meanwhile, it was a sunny day and bees were arriving at the hive entrances laden with pollen.  This is most likely Michaelmas Daisy pollen.

 



We've also put the Varroa floors back on the hives, taking care to put on a good barrier of Vaseline. Results next week!