Hello All

Thanks to everyone for their responses to my posts. The contributors break
down into two schools of thought.

One school of thought says feeding at dawn (or at any time during the day)
is OK, subject to normal precautions, the other and equally strident view is
'on no account feed them except at dusk'.

What puzzles me is how can highly experienced beekeepers differ on what to
me, at any rate, appears to be a fundamental point?. I say this for the
following reasons.

If seems to me, that feeding bees causes them to be aware of the presence of
the food initially but not of its location, and if they can fly (the non
dusk and weather OK situation), the entire area up to about 100 metres from
the hive will be searched. This seems to equate to their response to the
'round' dance. This is a fundamental behaviour pattern and never varies (is
that so?).

If they cannot fly (the dusk situation), it would seem reasonable that the
nearest bees to the food, find it and pass on the exact location to their
sisters by food transfer. Thus by morning all of the flying bees know where
the food is, so there is no searching to be done.

Thus, if the above arguments are correct, it would appear to me that feeding
at dusk is far preferable. If on the other hand, there are flaws in the
above, please let me know.

I look forward to comments.

Sincerely

Tom Barrett
49 South Park Foxrock
Dublin 18
Ireland