>-----Original Message----- >From: Juandefuca [mailto:[log in to unmask]] >Sent: Monday, July 17, 2000 1:13 AM >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: Screen boards and feeding >Finally somebody poses the question I have also questions to raise about. >When bees swarm in an unsupervised environment ( Millions of years) Did >someone fed them ??? As anyone can observe , before bees swarm they fill >their bellies with honey to be able to start anew in the process of >propagation !. Therefore I do not feed bees when I collect a swarm. Sure there was nobody around to feed a captured swarm before modern beekeeping. But then again bees were not living outside their natural range nor were they producing 150lbs of surplus honey a year. One could also ask who was building hive bodies, frames and supers millions of years ago! Feeding a swarm while stacking on supers of foundation is a great way to have foundation drawn out. It can also be a surprising way to have a colony explode in size. My largest colony at present was a average size swarm early this year. After hiving it into a single deep on foundation I started feeding syrup until they had the first deep drawn and were well into their first medium (I normaly use only medium supers but I only had a few empty deeps when the swarm issued). They are now stacked with supers and boiling over with bees. Feeding, like any form of manipulation, should be thought of as a way to manage the bees. In the case of feeding to reduce stress or to promote brood rearing and comb drawing.