Okay, next post in the "beginners beekeeping"
For a colony to make it through the winter, they must have
at least 15 kilos of stores. Stores are the name for stored honey, pollen etc. (foodstuffs).
The reason that bee colonies make honey is to set back stores for the Winter. Of course, then we robe their stores! The way around that is to either:
Leave them at least 15 kilos of honey for the Winter
Supplementary feed sugar syrup in the Autumn to compensate for lost stores
Because honey costs a lot more than sugar, many beekeepers extract as much hiney as possible and supplementary feed as a matter of routine. Clearly if the bees were to be "self supporting" then less honey could be extracted - about 11kg a year can be extracted in a normal year leaving plenty for Winter feed.
Since we have only just established our colonies, they haven't had a chance to accumulate enough stores. Lets bear in mind the poor buzzies have to fly 55,000 miles to make a pound of honey! As a result we need to feed them over this Autumn to let them make their Winter stores.
Each hive needs to be fed 15kg of sugar as a syrup. This is simple to make and fed through bee feeders. A bee feeder can be as simple as a "contact feeder" (a simple firmly lidded pot with some tiny holes in the lid or a mesh area - when inverted vacuum holds the syrup in place and the bees consume it through the small holes). We will use the "Brother Adam" type bulk feeder...I'll explain how they work later.
Okay, enough waffle, lets make some syrup. Syrup normally comes in two mixes 1:1 (Sugar:Water) or 2:1. Generally Autumn - Winter is 2:1 and 1:1 can be used as a Spring supplementary feed. Everything in these ratios is done by weight. Fortunately a litre of water weighs 1 kg - so for Autumn feed its 1 litre of water to 2 kilos of sugar. My mentor doesn't bother with measures! He gets a 30 litre bucket, dumps in a load of sugar, adds hot water just above the level the sugar is at (he marks a line with a permanent marker after putting in the dry sugar). Then he blends the lot with a plaster whisk in a power drill
. Mind you he makes feed 100 litres at a time :shock:
So we need 2.5 litres of hot (not boiling water)
1) 2.5 litre water by
British Red, on Flickr
Then we add a 5 kilo bag of sugar (£4 from Tesco)
2) 5 kilos Sugar by
British Red, on Flickr
Added together it looks like this
3) Mix and warm by
British Red, on Flickr
I stir well with a wooden spoon and put it on a low heat...you don't need to boil it, just keep warm till all the sugar dissolves
4) Dissolved Sugar by
British Red, on Flickr
Then let it cool. Interestingly - when its still warm, the bees like it better than cold - if its cold they have to warm it up. Pleasantly warm to the touch is great (they are happy with cold though).
Right - feeders. We made a mistake here. We bought this type to start with
5) Small Feeder by
British Red, on Flickr
They work by sitting over one of the holes in the crown board....you remember them right?
33 Crown Board by
British Red, on Flickr
Now, if you recall, we put our nucleus on one side of the brood box and the frames of new foundation on the other side. So the way to feed them is to put the left hand hole over the frames of brood from the nucleus and the hole in the middle of the feeder over that hole. The other hole is blocked with a tile. The bees can then crawl up the hole and down the (ridged) outside to consume the feed. A cover fits over the hole and cone to prevent bees inside the roof space falling into the syrup and drowning.
This we did. The feeders worked as advertised. So what was the problem? Well our mentor when he delivered the bees said two words "too small"! He was right. These green feeders hold just over a litre. Each hive emptied them in less than a day. So we bought cheap white basic economy feeders. These hold 6 litres apiece.
On Saturday we swapped over...
First, we suit up and give the bees a whiff of smoke
6) Whiff of smoke by
British Red, on Flickr
Then the large white feeders go in on top of the crown board. These large feeders seem to be lasting the bees several days. Their "greedy" consumption is a great sign - we really want them making up stores and stashing the food away - but we don't want to be disturbing the hive every day - so we hope the big feeders will enable both to happen
7) 6 Litre Economy Feeder by
British Red, on Flickr
Thats it - we will continue making up syrup and topping up feeders until at least 15kg of sugar has been stored by each hive.
The good news?
Remember those new frames of foundation we put in on Friday? Well this was the one nearest the brood on Tuesday
Drawing comb on new frames by
British Red, on Flickr
The foundation is being quickly drawn out into comb to store those sustaining stores!
Next post will be on Varroa control
Red