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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: April Rhodes <ARhodes AT sportsendeavors.com>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Sugar feedings and queen excluder
  • Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2012 15:53:00 -0400

April,

Re: when to stop feeding syrup:
The main reason we feed syrup is to keep our bees from starving, plain and simple. Open your hives, pull your frames and see how much honey/nectar/syrup is there. If your bees have plenty of stored honey, then you don't need to give them more.
Right now, there are some nectar plants blooming but the volume of nectar coming in is a whole lot less than it was a month ago. Things will dry up even more as the summer progresses. We should get another mini nectar flow in September & October, typically enough for the bees to store enough food for the winter. But from now until then, don't be complacent; keep an eye on them to make sure their stored food supply doesn't fall too low. IF it does, feed them. Starved bees are a sad sight to see.

Re: shallow super and queen excluder: Don't put a super on your hives for the purpose of collecting honey if you are feeding sugar syrup. "Sugar syrup honey" isn't honey and it doesn't taste like much of anything. This time of year in the Piedmont, you aren't going to get a honey crop --- the main nectar flow is over.
But for next year --- there are many excellent uses for a queen excluder, many not directly associated with gathering honey. As a beginner, I recommend that you use an excluder between the brood boxes and the honey supers at the beginning of the main nectar flow. When you get some experience under your belt, you'll find that sometimes (not always) bees don't like going through an excluder, and so by using one you may be reducing the honey crop stored in the supers. The trick to not using a queen excluder is to wait until there is a solid band of honey a couple of inches thick above the brood nest before putting on your supers. If you have a well-behaved queen, she won't cross the honey band to go up into the supers, so the band acts in the same way as an excluder. A perfectly good strategy is to start the honey season with an excluder on the hive, then when there is a sufficient honey band underneath it, remove it. If you put supers on a hive without a queen excluder or a protective honey band, there is a good chance the queen will lay eggs in the super. That isn't the end of the world but it certainly isn't desirable.

Re: Did I do the right thing? : If it works for you, it is the right thing. Keep on experimenting, asking questions and having fun. It gets boring when everything turns out perfectly every time!

Randall Austin



On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 12:08 PM, April Rhodes <ARhodes AT sportsendeavors.com> wrote:

New beekeeper here… How do I know when to stop feeding my bees sugar syrup?  I installed my hive back in April, have 2 hive bodys, and one shallow super (if all that makes a difference).  They’re still taking the syrup, a mason jar full every day or so.    

 

Also, I put on the shallow super last week but did not add a queen excluder.  Much of the research I’m finding is mixed about whether or not you should use a queen excluder.  Did I do the right thing?

 

Thanks,

April

 


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