Well done BridgetOriginally Posted by Bridget
LOL!! smacked wrist emoticon
I shoot myself in the foot regularly
That's the emoticon I would need
Well done Bridget
LOL!! smacked wrist emoticon
I shoot myself in the foot regularly
That's the emoticon I would need
Try thisWell done Bridget
LOL!! smacked wrist emoticon
I shoot myself in the foot regularly
That's the emoticon I would need
Slap wrist does not exist sadly.
Last edited by Bridget; 22-08-2013 at 02:23 PM.
Not sure that I'm going to need to feed them much this year at all. Most of my brood boxes are choc a bloc with clover honey and they are now going demented on the heather - happy days!
Worth swapping a couple of frames for foundation so that they have space to raise brood on the current bonanza? You can always replace them later.
Plenty of heather honey going in (largely to the brood boxes) on a visit to the hills yesterday.
I'm not with you on this one Jon.
I find feeding at this time of year can be hugely productive in the right circumstances, like putting another brood box on a hive to clear a pile of supers down onto, feeding like hell then splitting and adding a queen, I do it on most powerful colonies that havent gone to the heather and its a very easy way of making increase. Without the feed not much would happen in the second box but without the second box they would be a bit cramped. I also judiciously keep feeding any nucs I deem would benefit to build them up for winter, it works for me.
I too worried about this advice. Now is your last chance - in most parts of Scotland anyway - to build the strength of small ones for the winter. Murray has a similar approach and builds small late splits at this time of year. Natural forage if you are lucky, feeding if not. Ivy flows are rare in Scotland and the minor ones I've seen at my main site some autumns is unusual. When I mentioned it to locals and some bee farmers they hadn't seen any ivy flow themselves.
We must have different conditions.
I often see colonies or nucs getting clogged up with stores from overfeeding - or getting robbed during syrup feeding.
Tonight at the association apiary I transferred a colony someone had donated, from an 8 frame box into a 6 frame poly nuc.
5 of the 8 frames were completely full of capped stores and the queen had absolutely nowhere left to lay.
I removed three frames and gave a drawn comb which was handy and will remove a couple more tomorrow to be replaced with drawn comb.
Overfeeding is far more common than underfeeding and filling a box full of stores mid August is far too early, imho.
MBC. I can see how putting on a second brood box and feeding might work if you want to do a split and introduce another queen.
I do similar by removing the top box and bees from the queenright cellraisers.
The six frame poly nucs are a case in point, feed them until they build comb up to the crown board and they are ready for transferring into a full size box (with a very small entrance).
I would agree that overfeeding is more common than underfeeding, but there is a happy medium.
Another reason to feed in August would be to get foundation drawn, ideal time to take advantage of tate and lyle rather than god given precious nectar.
Brilliant where you find them I don't knowTry this
Slap wrist does not exist sadly.
I've nicked that for a while Bridget
Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 23-08-2013 at 07:49 PM.
I've lost a mini-nuc to bl@@dy wasps ... the bees absconded rather than stay and get decimated. I arrived home to find them flying over the fence in a small swirling mass. It was mid-afternoon and warm, so hoped it was a bit of late season, near-apiary, hanky-panky from my darkish bees (whatever Photoshop trickery Gavin applies!).
Alas. They didn't return.
Fast running out of drones here for mating
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