feeding questions

[shelley]

I live in the northwest, washington state, Tacoma, and I've begun feeding sugar syrup. I have one hive and this is the first year for me and the bees. They swarmed in June and so I have a new queen after the swarm and they are building up and are beginning to fill up the second deep. I was into the hive this weekend and it looked like they have lots of honey in the top level and the brood area in the bottom have hatched

Anyway I've been adding syrup almost every day and wonder if this will continue. It seems like alot to me, should I bee feeding every day or slower? Will this be necessary until it freezes. They went through a whole gallon in 24 hours.

I also fed bee pro patties and wonder if I should continue giving them this for awhile or is one application ok.

Thanks for any advice or replies.

[Brian D. Bray]

I'd save the patties until spring as that is when the bees are most likely to need it.  Their stores of pollen should be good right now, feeding patties is usually only done to help stimulate brood development when feeding syrup in the spring.  Feed syrup until they've backfilled 80% of the brood chamber in both boxes and have begun to build a little burr comb.  That should give them what they need for winter.

If you bought a package and they swarmed in June, then you over feed them and supered too late.  Feeding syrup is ment as an augmentation to top off the hive or stimulate it when first getting established.  Feeding should be done sparingly and only when necessary such as: Starting a hive (2 weeks), during dearth or drought to prevent startvation, or top of stores in late fall prior to overwintering.

The way most books describe feeding syrup causes too many beeginners to over feed.