Originally Posted by
Kate Atchley
Bridget, so sorry you lost these bees.
I was wondering about leaving the bees on the heather till end September. Maybe the syrup was fed after that? There was some of that occasional good weather early October, so the bees around here were still foraging vigorously at that time. Yours too perhaps. So were the bees taking in/down more nectar/syrup than they could condense straight away and once the colder weather set in it became difficult to do this, so some stores were left uncapped and unfinished?
Also, I wondered how early the fondant was fed to them? It was a mild Autumn up to Christmas, so were the bees trying to store from that block too ... again adding to the strain on the hive to drive off enough moisture from the stores?
Here I take any honey off by mid-September latest (there's heather around – I don't move the bees) so that any feeding is finished by the end of the month and the bees take any autumn forage for themselves. Maybe I'm being too cautious but we have notoriously unpredictable weather!
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