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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Meredith Friedrick <friema16 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Orange County Bees <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] Full hive
  • Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 15:29:04 -0400

I am a newbee and this is my first fall preparation for winter.  I inspected my hive today (I have one hive with a deep and a medium.  There are tons of bees and the super is 2/3 full of capped honey.  The deep has everything -- honey, capped brood, open brood and pollen.  To my unexperienced eye, my hive seems healthy (my mentor helped me do the sugar shake about 6 weeks ago and I had very low mite count, I believe 3, but treated the hive with Api Life Var the recommended three times).  My mentor also felt that my hive was healthy.  I have been feeding with sugar water for about 8 weeks now and will continue to feed until the temps go down to freezing.  
OK, that said, how should I make sure my bees have enough room (without too much room) to continue to store sugar water/honey for the winter.  Should I remove some frames from the super and replace with new ones?  If so, how many should I do at a time?
After the last OCBA meeting and the discussion about feeding pollen, etc., I came away a little confused.  If I don't want to encourage lots of brood through the winter, what do I do to be sure they stay alive but not terribly prolific?
I also plan to make and use a quilt box.

Thanks for any advice.

Meredith Friedrick



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