Tom Barrett said:

> Leave the bees one super of honey rather than feeding them syrup.
> This will IMHO ensure that the bees are getting a food which
> contains the enzymes which they have put into the honey...

While I am sure most all beekeepers leave a not insignificant
amount of stored honey for the bees to overwinter on, I'm not
sure I follow the logic in never feeding syrup.

As for enzymes, any "required" enzymes will be added to nectar
or syrup by either the house bee who fetches the food, or by
the consuming bee.

To clarify, a colony with zero stored honey can still raise brood.
They take nectar (or syrup), mix with pollen, and make
"brood food" (or, if you must, "royal jelly").  Any essential
enzymes must be added by the house bees, since the brood
is able to grow despite the lack of stored honey.  The
resulting bees do not appear to be malnourished in any way.

While bees will "raid the stores" during a nectar dearth, my
understanding of current research and my own observations have
led me to believe that stored honey will not be consumed when
nectar is available, so nectar (or syrup) is not an "inferior"
food to honey. Bees seem to prefer nectar or syrup to honey when
given a choice.    The studies that I have seen have rated nectar
(or man's closest analog, "syrup") as a "better" food for bees
facing starvation (and overwintering bees) than stored honey due
to the "solids" content of many honey types and the lack of
cleansing flight opportunities in winter.

> Just put the super under the brood chamber separated from
> the brood chamber by a queen excluder, and the bees who abhor
> a food source under the brood chamber, will remove the stores
> to the brood chamber.

To move stores around would require fairly warm temperatures,
wouldn't it?  At least warm enough for bees to leave the cluster.
In winter, my colonies' clusters tend to "eat their way up" to
the top of the hive.  Do your bees "eat down"?

And what about the queen excluder?  If the main cluster
moves down (or up) through a queen excluder to a super of "stores"
honey, what happens to the queen?  I would NEVER leave an excluder
on a colony over winter, as I fear exactly this scenario.  I'm not
sure if the queen would get left behind in a smaller cluster of
diehard loyalists to chill and die, or if the entire cluster would
refuse to move without the queen and starve.  I'd rather not
know which, as I hate losing any colony.

I assume that no attempt is being made to "jump start"
the early laying of eggs by introducing a small artificial
"bloom" in the form of a feeder.  To my knowledge, mere
available stores will never do this.  What is required is
"liquid nectar", and a little "fresh pollen", regardless
of the actual authenticity of each (or lack thereof).

I've never put a super that I wanted the bees to "clean out"
below the brood chambers, as I am just too lazy to do all
that extra lifting.  I just toss them on above the inner
cover, which works fine - the bees clean the comb out in
short order.

                jim

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