This past fall and now with candy boards my bees have had a protein
supplement. I purchase the patties all made, expensive but I sell them so
it helps my cost by supplying them to hobbyist. We lost the goldenrod a
little early last fall so I put patties on every hive, most using one patty
some needing two. At the end of January I had to start putting on candy
boards, that is another weather story very warm winter with bees flying at
least 3 days out of the week so they went through stores fast. Some hives
have bits of their patties left some have almost a whole patty left. I have
been putting the leftovers along with a new patty on the candy boards.
Granted it has been a really mild winter so it is hard to compare but as of
yet I have only lost 1 hive, it was a late start nuc that had some problems
so it was expected. Almost all of my hives have 7 to 8 frames of bees. I
think my queens never stopped laying. I have been happy with
feeding protein, not some thing I can do in the middle of winter since
usually the bees can not have so many cleansing flights but feeding it in
fall seems to agree with my bees. The combination of young queens and
plenty of food has given me full hives in February. I'm hoping that I can
get to the end of March with the bees looking as good as they do right now.

I also want to say some on this list have been very helpful and forthright
with information, always willing to answer my questions. Over all I have
become a smarter beekeeper and had to let go of the idea that the bees can
do it on their own as I used to let them do in my early years of
beekeeping. I started in the 70's, those were carefree years, add supers
and take them off nothing much to worry about. I took over another apiary a
few years ago and wow is all I can say things changed fast. Things had been
going along good and then I had two winters with big losses so changing my
ways have been important, I got a microscope, consider diet, requeen more
often, the list goes on.

Karen T-K
Maine

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