hive only has 5 frames of stored honey and are not taking feed!

[adamant]

box is very light and they are not taking feed! only have 5 frames of honey stored and bottom box is empty. what should i do?

[FRAMEshift]

How many frames of bees are in that hive?  Do you have other hives?

[greenbtree]

I had same problem with one hive, and the advice I got here was reduce the space the bees are in.  Take off the empty bottom box at this point.  Mine actually started taking a little syrup after.  Maybe because they were warmer.  Some here will say stop feeding now, others will say keep feeding.  The main point was reduce the space the bees will overwinter in so they don't have to try to heat it.

JC

[AliciaH]

I have not been keeping up on NJ weather, but if it's warm enough to try, could you swap the boxes?  Bees like to store over the brood chamber and may take syrup to fill some of that space.  If they don't fill, or don't fill enough to warrant keeping the box on (like greenbtree suggests, too much space to keep warm in), you can always store the one or two frames they did fill to feed back later.  And, it will be easier to pull at that point because it will be on top.