As A first year beekeeper I find myself needing the help of the more
experienced. I purchased a nuc in the first week of June this year, 2 frames
of brood and 1 frame of honey with a mated queen (Carniolan). I spent the
entire month of June replacing queens (The third one finally took but I
don't think it's a NYC Queen, it came from Canada and I'm not sure of the
lineage). The queen has done excellent for what little time she has had. In
the first week of July I bought another frame of brood to assist the colony
in building up. now that cooler weather has approached the queen is not
laying as rapidly as before and I'm getting concerned about the upcoming
winter.

        I have been feeding sugar all summer( I just switched two a mix of 2 sugar
to 1 water and they are taking a little more then a quart a day), I
currently have 12 to 13 frames of drawn comb and 7-8 frames of foundation
that they haven't touched yet. I live in SW New Hampshire (USA), we
typically see the first frost around the middle to end of September, and
snow around thanksgiving that lasts till march or April.

        We have had lousy weather for the bee's, the nectar seems really watered
down this year, most other beekeeper's are experiencing low yields in this
area, and with a killing frost right around the corner I'm concerned that my
hive is not strong enough to winter. I only have one colony so I can't merge
two together to get them through, which brings me to my questions:

1) Can I over winter a colony in just one deep super?

2) Can I do anything to push my bees to build more comb this late in the
season?

3) Is my colony doomed?

4) Can I feed right up to x-mas and then begin again in February without
compromising my bees? (this would allow me to leave the hive closed during
the coldest part of the year)

        Any help or suggestions would be appreciated, I've put a lot of work into
these girls and would hate to subject them to freezing to death without
doing everything possible to get them to next year.

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