>>> I bought 80lbs of Mega bee.... If I feed that mixed with syrup, can I feed it with supers on??
I really have trouble with feeding anything resembling syrup or nectar while supers are on. Why? I'm afraid of contamination of the honey with what I'm feeding. I'm so leary, in fact, that I dye the syrup I'm feeding with food coloring so that I can tell if any significant amount gets into my honey supers. If I see any cells that contain the food coloring, I don't extract them. But, I try to stop feeding before placing honey supers on the hive. Bees do move honey around.
Mike in LA
On Monday, June 30, 2014 11:44 PM, James Fischer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> there was no apparent benefit to
> feeding during strong natural
> pollen flow.
Not sure how much rain you get out there, or how often.
http://www.ca.gov/drought/ says things like "one of the most severe droughts
on record", "drought State of Emergency", and "unprecedented drought".
But for the rest of us, when water falls from the sky, bees stay home, and
several days of rain in a row can leave the bees critically short of fresh
high-protein pollen for brood. So the benefit to feeding pollen is "cheap
insurance" when weather is variable, and one has pollination contracts or is
building up colonies for splits, or a Sourwood crop (for all ya'll who know
what Sourwood is).
Also, hives pollinating apples generally tend to lose weight, and apple
pollen is of such lousy quality that hives being placed in several
successive apple orchards during the spring will need pollen, and some may
need supplemental feeding, or they will start to cannibalize what brood that
they cannot feed. Yes, you can actually kill a hive by merely putting it on
apples and expecting it to make a living on the apple blossoms. Cold, damp
weather makes it even worse.
Other than that, I agree that the bees always prefer real nectar and pollen
over the fake stuff, a good reason to invest in pollen traps.
***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
|
