>This is pretty basic stuff folks, readily available in the archives or  any
beginning beekeeping reference.


Re the discussion of feeding new colonies on foundation, this is a recurrent
question.  As one can see from the posted answers, there is often lots of
conflicting advice.

Please allow me to make a suggestion to beginners:  forget following
"rules," but rather look into your hives and actually monitor what is going
on.  Your supplemental feeding of light sucrose syrup greatly helps the bees
to build comb and establish the broodnest.

Insufficient sugar syrup or nectar stops the process, and the colony will
languish until a flow resumes.  Too much syrup, and the colony will store it
as sugar "honey," and eventually plug the broodnest (honeybound condition).

Best is to use this situation as a learning experience and learn to use your
eyes to determine the condition of the colony.

Give the colony enough supplemental syrup to allow for continual comb
building and broodnest expansion (monitored by checking for the presence of
fresh white wax), but not so much as to encourage major honey storage (check
the tops of the brood combs, and the outer combs of the hive for amount of
"honey" stored.  Adjust the amount of feeding appropriately.

Randy Oliver

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