Comb question

[Kris^]

The bees fed well in the fall and packed all the free frames with sugar syrup.    I lost two late splits and nucced a small hive, and as a result I now have 3 brood boxes and a super mostly full of capped syrup.  In addition, the remaining strong hives have 3/4 of their frames still filled with syrup.    They haven't laid up any more brood since I checked on 2/25, so I think they may be "syrup" bound.  One hive is absolutely boiling over right now, but no swarm cells present -- yet, in any hive.  And although I sraped the cappings from the super of syrup and set it in the field, none of the hives was interested in robbing it.  They've been going to the water trough, though.  They ate all the pollen patties I put on 2/25.

It seems to me the thing to do is to just extract the syrup from the extra supers and introduce the empty frames into the hives.  (Checkerboarding?)  Does this sound like a sensible plan?  Could I then dilute the extracted syrup and feed it back as 2:1 syrup?

We had a wonderful spell of temperatures in the 60s and 70s, and I put a Miller frame in my mellowest hive to start trying to raise some queens.  We'll soon be going into a period of daytime temps in the mid to upper 40s, with overnight lows at freezing.

-- Kris

[Robo]

Whatever method you choose, it sounds like you have the right idea of freeing up some space.  Of course the easiest would be to remove the syrup frames, replace with empty frames, and store them for later feeding.  However,  I'm sure you are just like the rest of us and don't have a lot of empty frames just waiting around.  So it will be a little more labor intensive.  Extracting might be the only option if it has not crystalized in the cells.  Putting them out to be robbed doesn't really help, if they just pack it back in to the empty frames.  You'll just end up right back in the same situation.  I would also stop feeding them as it will continue the same pattern.

These frames would be useful for giving splits a head start if splits are in your plans for this year.

Most importantly, hopefully you have learned from this experience and will now understand Finsky's concern with all the over-feeding people are doing.

[Kris^]

Most importantly, hopefully you have learned from this experience and will now understand Finsky's concern with all the over-feeding people are doing.

Amen.  Thing is, the over-feeding was from the fall.  60 lbs of 2:1 syrup, plus a candy board on top.  Most of the candy was gone; the syrup remained.   :(

-- Kris