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Wed, 6 Nov 2013 18:05:02 -0500 |
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Peter wrote:
"I get the impression that you folks feed an awful lot more than me
(rarely more than 12lbs equivalent of sugar)."
Not me! I haven't routinely fed my bees for years and very rarely lose
bees to starvation, except occasionally isolation starvation when there
are adequate stores but not within reach of the cluster. If you rob
them too heavily and then feed sugar either you will feed too little
and they will starve; you will feed the right amount, in which case
there is a career opening for you at the Meteorological Office; or you
will feed too much and you will end up bottling and selling partially
recycled sugar. In my opinion any sugar/syrup fed to bees should be
tinted with food dye (blue's a good colour as there are few foods that
naturally are blue) to make it obvious where the artificial stores end
up.
You get what you select for. If you don't allow Darwin to de-select
the bees that need artificial feeding, you will always need to feed
your bees.
I tend to take my crop later than the books recommend in order to allow
them to reduce the brood nest and pack it around with stores. Then
everything above the QE (in National hives) is mine. I also run a few
top bar hives. They seem to do well and I take my crop from them at
dandelion/willow time.
Honey production varies tremendously between hives: you might get a
hundredweight from one hive and a couple of stones from the one next to
it. I have had the occasional hive supered to be taller than me but
that is unusual. It is years since I recorded the honey crop per hive
but, as I recall, the average over several years was about 45lb per
hive.
Chris
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