I constantly hear newbees advised to feed, feed, feed their bees till they won't
ake it anymore. I always wonder how much of that cane sugar ends up in their
upers as "honey".
If you rob your bees and then feed them, you give them either too little, in which case they'll starve; just the right amount, in which case you're very lucky and ought to take up a new career as a weather forecaster; or too much, in which case some will end up in the supers and you will be defrauding your customers. It's all a matter of balance and where you fit between keeping bees for the sake of the bees or doing so for the sake of the bank manager.
I haven't winter fed my bees for many years and rarely have a loss that I can put down to starvation. If the bees can't cope with the local winter with what they gather then they're better eliminated from the local gene pool.
Chris
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