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Author Topic: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup  (Read 9473 times)

Offline Jim134

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #20 on: November 24, 2012, 10:17:15 am »
All the professional  beekeeper's (500 hives and up) that I now In this part of the USA that stay home leave honey on for wintering only Feed  if the honey store are to small where I live the hive need about 35K of honey to make the winter.Taking all the honey off and give feed back sugar is not cost effectual in the USA.
 




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« Last Edit: November 24, 2012, 10:51:50 am by Jim 134 »
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Offline BlueBee

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #21 on: November 24, 2012, 11:33:39 am »
There are 2 large commercial guys around me (400+ hives) that do things completely opposite with regards to feeding.  Imagine that, bee keepers disagreeing how to winter bees. :)

Anyhow, the one guy swears by using candy boards to get your hives through winter.  He puts the Candy boards on in January or February.   I believe he typically winters in double deeps.  

The other beek has a different philosophy; he keeps bees in the standard double deep configuration during the summer but extracts the top deep at the end of the season and winters in just a single deep box.  So he takes most of the bees honey and sells it.  In a mild winter a descent number of his hives survive and he makes up for the losses with splits.  In bad winters, most of his hives die so he drives to Georgia in the spring and buys a boat load of new bees.

I'm just a hobby beek myself with a few 10s of hives and generally follow the advice of people on here who also winter in insulated hives (Finski, Edward, Robo).  I do most of my wintering in single boxes and rarely feed after October.  The exception to that general rule is if I see a hive getting really light on stores.  Then you have to do something or they will die.

Offline oblib

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #22 on: November 24, 2012, 11:43:02 am »
... a few snips

The other beek has a different philosophy; he keeps bees in the standard double deep configuration during the summer but extracts the top deep at the end of the season and winters in just a single deep box.  So he takes most of the bees honey and sells it.  In bad winters, most of his hives die so he drives to Georgia in the spring and buys a boat load of new bees.


Just thinking that without the cost of the candyboards and the extra deep of honey to sell, he probably comes out ahead even if all his hives die????

Offline BlueBee

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #23 on: November 24, 2012, 11:50:43 am »
Exactly, that why he's making a living off bees and I'm not!   :-D

Actually both of these commercial guys APPEAR to be doing a good business. You never really know for sure.  I'm sure there are pros and cons to each approach.  While the later beek has lower equipment costs and lower labor costs, his bees may start off spring in a weaker condition than the first guy.  It's gotta to be real tough to make a living off bees though. :( 

Offline Finski

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #24 on: November 24, 2012, 11:56:44 am »
 Imagine that, bee keepers disagreeing how to winter bees. :)


USA is the only country in the world which collects its hives on the fields of south. Hives have no winter rest and that is why hives have special proplem: Disapearing.

Then no one knows that Alaska have too bees. Hives are too expencive to send to California. That is why they kill their bees and then they bye new colonioes wit Hawaian queens.

Lets look California weather. Is it time to send bees to enjoy winter there:

Yes. Seems good. It is time 6:30 morning there anp tem is 15.3C. It is promised 28C the highest temp. Yes, sounds warm spell.

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Offline Finski

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #25 on: November 24, 2012, 11:57:33 am »
.
And what are the losses of small beekeepers in USA.
Those Natinal guys have 40% average losses. Are they teaching in this forum how to over winter hives?



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Offline Finski

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #26 on: November 24, 2012, 12:03:16 pm »
.
Beekeepers have different opinion about wintering hives. Thank's to heaven for that!

In Alaska

Why nobody write about bees there?

what are temps in Anchorage

Celsius:

Today
-8°

-12°

Sun
-7°

-13°

Mon
-6°

-11°

Tues
-5°

-12°
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Offline BlueBee

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #27 on: November 24, 2012, 12:16:10 pm »
I'm at 0C right now....and I'm talking about bees   :-D

T Beek is probably -8C or colder

Minneapolis Minnesota is -8C right now (mid day).

We don't need to go to Alaska to find cold here  :)

Finski you make a good point that all the moving around of bees we do here might be having a detrimental affect on them.

Offline Finski

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #28 on: November 24, 2012, 12:28:26 pm »

We don't need to go to Alaska to find cold here  :)



That is not the point.  You offer the solutions which are good all over the vast country, from Alaska to Florida.

"Me America, - me no varroa."  That is your attitude and it does not come better.

But beeks  love humpug. When some with 2 years experience offer something stupid, you must at once go and start to tease your bees.

Bees stand many kind of beekeepers but it seems that in USA their tolerance has been went over.


-
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Offline BlueBee

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #29 on: November 24, 2012, 12:50:01 pm »
If we all had to winter our bees in the frigid north all our USA bees might die. :(

Hey Finski, at least I haven’t tried a long hive yet.  :)

Offline Finski

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #30 on: November 24, 2012, 01:26:46 pm »
If we all had to winter our bees in the frigid north all our USA bees might die. :(

Hey Finski, at least I haven’t tried a long hive yet.  :)


And 20 other "hive types"...

This was the most popular hive in Finland 50 y ago and now they are zero

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Offline sterling

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #31 on: November 24, 2012, 07:22:41 pm »
If we all had to winter our bees in the frigid north all our USA bees might die. :(

Hey Finski, at least I haven’t tried a long hive yet.  :)


But you are getting close to a long hive with that 12 frame one. Next year it will be a 14 then a 16 maybe put two together= 32. :-D

Offline Finski

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #32 on: November 25, 2012, 01:43:43 am »
.
This "long hive" is from Denmark.
It is perhaps 70 y old

We called them "turn around hive"

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Offline BlueBee

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #33 on: November 25, 2012, 06:50:56 pm »
Hey, I like the looks of that hive!  Love the colors too :)

Add a little polystyrene in there and it would be good to go for the 21st century.

Offline Finski

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #34 on: November 25, 2012, 07:01:08 pm »
Hey, I like the looks of that hive!  Love the colors too :)

Add a little polystyrene in there and it would be good to go for the 21st century.

There should be saw dust .

But where you put that little polystyrene?
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Offline BlueBee

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #35 on: November 25, 2012, 07:06:14 pm »
Oh, so you're saying that is a double walled hive and they used to put sawdust between the walls?  That is interesting.  I just figured it was a single layer of wood.  In that case I would probably replace the sawdust with cellulose insulation.  

I’ve got an old house in town with about 2000 sq feet of old 4” (exposure) pine clapboard siding that need to be pulled off and replaced next spring.  I was wondering what the heck to do with all those old boards but now Finski has given me an idea... :)  

I wonder how many of these long hives I could make out of 2000 sq feet (185 square meter) of lumber?  I’ll probably need at least 4 for my over wintered mating nucs.

Offline tjc1

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #36 on: November 25, 2012, 10:43:53 pm »

[/quote]

And now, if nervous beekeeper try to help bees to enjoy on thanks giving day, christmas evening, new year  and all warm spells which go over, it is sure that bees' genome have not adapted to all festivalls what a beek get into his mind.

[/quote]

That's funny, I don't care who you are!! :lau:

I'll never forget that one, Finski! A good lesson to this 'nervous beekeeper'!


Online Michael Bush

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Re: Sugar as bee food, dry or syrup
« Reply #37 on: November 29, 2012, 12:49:05 pm »
Dry sugar on top works just like a candy board except you don't have to make the candy.  The bees only eat it if they are hungry and it contact with it.  They generally do not convert it to honey.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm#drysugar
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
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