Sugar water???? Helping my new pkg??? Or not?

[Georgia Boy]

Have been feeding my new pkg sugar water for the past week since installing them last Saturday, April 20th. To stimulate wax for comb building. Since we are in nectar flow right now in Georgia I am not sure it is helping.

I am fairly sure I mixed it incorrectly. Was shooting for a 1:1 ratio (sugar : water) however I believe, after doing much research, that I have only a 1/2:1 ratio. I mixed 4lbs of sugar to 2/3 gallon of water. Based on reading Michaels website it should be 1 pint of sugar to 1 pint of water. A pint being a pound. So based of that I should have mixed 8lbs of sugar to a gallon of water. Since there are 8 pints of water in a gallon.

Question: should I amend the sugar water up to the 1:1 ratio or should I just let them have what I have already given them and then stop feeding since we are in flow?

Thanks

David

[Finski]

. Since we are in nectar flow right now in Georgia I am not sure it is helping.

David

a problem with small colony  is that it fills combs with nectar and then it has not enough room for brood and laying. So it swarms. That is why extra feeding makes things worse.

New bees start to emerge after 4 weeks and during that time colony has lost 50% of its bees.


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[10framer]

i'd stop feeding.  there should be plenty of forage for them by now.  i'm with finski, they'll start back filling and the queen will have nowhere to lay.  i mad an early split with 3 frames of brood, 2 of honey and 5 of foundation and let them raise their own queen.  they drew out all of the foundation and have back filled almost the entire deep.  i've been steadily shifting frames around to try and stay ahead of them and finally added another deep of foundation a few days ago.  they have been limiting her laying area to one frame and that will be a problem for them in a month. i'm going to end up with a hive full of honey but no bees to protect it if they don't give her some room.  if you keep feeding i think you'll end up in the same boat.  let them do their own thing for now.

[Kathyp]

if you are in the middle of a flow, you probably don't need to feed.

one note, though....many of these types of questions are best answered after you have looked inside the hive.  it's really hard to tell, and hard to help people, if we don't know what's going on inside.

this hive might have back filled with nectar/syrup, or it might have gone on a comb building binge and brood raising frenzy.  from the outside, we don't know. ;)

[Finski]

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I have been in this forum for years.

What I have learned here is that beginners have difficulties to get their colonies big.
Continuous feeding derives colonies to swarming.

Beeks do not understand either that hive needs lots of room where nectar rippens before capping.

In Britain all are mad with their excluders. They feed year around their hives like pigs.
And what result: swarming and 5 frame colonies for winter. Even 3-frames.


In discussions beginners seldom tell how many brood frames the colony has.
It is a sign of wellfare.

Beeks are too mad to split their colonies too early. It tells too that they have no knowledge about basic laws of bee colony build up.

 And finally neither USA or UK understand nothing about insulation and food consumption in winter. Only what they understand is feed feed feed feed.

What we keep important in wintering is: don't disturb hives, don't disturb hives, don't disturd hives. Our bees do not stand  Independence Day or Christmas meals.



 

[Georgia Boy]

Thanks Finski. :)

It is raining today here and tomorrow I will be removing the feeder. Since we are in flow here I believe they will find what they need naturally.

It has only been a week since I installed this pkg and the queen is just starting to lay. So they should be fine.

Thanks again.

David

[iddee]

Finski and 10framer, how do you keep them from back filling with real nectar if there is a flow on? They are not stupid. They will only back fill when the colony is strong.

Georgia boy, I would keep feeding for 3 weeks from install. Then the new bees will begin emerging. Check then and if they have empty comb to put it in, continue feeding. Unless they fill all available comb, feeding will do no harm and will help the package live longer, with less miles to fly foraging.

[Georgia Boy]

to iddee: If I do keep feeding, should I get my ratio up. I think I am not even at 1:1?

Thanks

David

[Finski]

It has only been a week since I installed this pkg and the queen is just starting to lay. So they should be fine.

Thanks again.

David

how big is your colony. Weight or how many frames bees cover?

[Georgia Boy]

Bees are covering 5 of 8 frames. They have started building comb on all but the 2 two frames on each side.

[Caleb012]

Finski...what would you say the basics of colony build up are?

[10framer]

Finski and 10framer, how do you keep them from back filling with real nectar if there is a flow on? They are not stupid. They will only back fill when the colony is strong.

Georgia boy, I would keep feeding for 3 weeks from install. Then the new bees will begin emerging. Check then and if they have empty comb to put it in, continue feeding. Unless they fill all available comb, feeding will do no harm and will help the package live longer, with less miles to fly foraging.

well the split that was basically a 5 frame nuc that i didn't give a queen certainly back filled every frame while they were queenless and has drawn out the other 5 and is filling them since she emereged and mated.  there are only enough bees to cover about 6 or 7 frames.....that doesn't sound particularly strong compared to my other hives.  mine are back filling with nectar.  but to answer your question, i super them and add another brood chamber at the same time if they are strong enough.  but, that sin't quite the same as what's going on with a hive started from a package.  my thoughts are that if there is a flow on plus they are being spoon fed and they have no emerging brood they are going to store faster than they can build and limit the area the queen can lay simply because they have a limited amount of labor.  
installing a package is just creating an artificial swarm.  feral swarms don't get fed 24-7 and they have survived for thousands of years.  3 pounds of bees can only produce so much comb per day and if they have adapted to foraging maybe 8 hours a day but they suddenly have a nectar source 24 hours a day it seems like they would be capable of storing 3 times more than they would normally be able to produce space for.  so, i agree that under normal circumstances the bees should know what to do but having feed dumped on them 24 hours a day isn't normal for them.  they don't know that they can leave that sugar water and it will still be there for them in a week.  instinct will tell them to store as much as they can as fast as they can.

[10framer]

Bees are covering 5 of 8 frames. They have started building comb on all but the 2 two frames on each side.

you need to super them.  how many of the frames are 3/4 brood? 

[10framer]

i forgot you were running mediums.  they need room while they are in "work hard, work fast mode". 

rob

[Georgia Boy]

to 10framer,

No brood yet as I can tell. At least none capped. It has only been a week and the queen was just released Tuesday. She may have just started laying.

Went in today only to remove some comb they had built straight up off the the foundation before they built more bad off of it.

[iddee]

GB, nectar is about 1 to 4. Feeding a package is normally 1 To 1. Anything between is fine, it just makes them work harder when the ratio is light. 1 to 1 added to the existing would be fine.


10framer, I agree with most that you say, but bees reassign duties as needed. If comb builders are needed more than foragers, they will convert foragers to comb builders until no longer needed.

[Finski]

Bees are covering 5 of 8 frames. They have started building comb on all but the 2 two frames on each side.

you need to super them.  how many of the frames are 3/4 brood?  

of course not !

A swarm just started.  bees cover  frames but surely have not drawn them.
As I wrote, new bees start to emerge after 3 weeks. Brood are few yet.

Bees have hard job to draw  all those 8 foundations.
Extra space makes only difficulties, like defence the hive.

A hive is week old. It takes couple of days before the queen starts laying. Then it takes 3 days that hive has larvae.
Now propably the hive has tiny larvae in 2 combs.
 
It is needless to quess, what hive is after 2 weeks. It is better wait and look than assume.

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[10framer]

to 10framer,

No brood yet as I can tell. At least none capped. It has only been a week and the queen was just released Tuesday. She may have just started laying.

Went in today only to remove some comb they had built straight up off the the foundation before they built more bad off of it.

eggs and larvae, it's too soon for capped brood. 
i think up until recently most people started 10 frame deeps with three pound packages.  you've got around 2/3 that amount of space.  if they've drawn comb on 80 percent of the area you've given them in one week i think you can give them more room.   
with the flow on robbing shouldn't be an issue. 
you've most likely got 8 weeks or less for the main flow.  every egg that get's laid today is one more bee to forge toward the end of that flow.  after the flow is the time robbing might start to be an issue it'll be good to have a lot of bees.