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 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::