Spring Feeding

[Bush_84]

Double post but thus far simple plywood with poly on top warmed up a refrigerated jar of syrup.  I used two 15 watt bulbs.  Maybe I'll put them in with a single bulb first.

[BlueBee]

Sounds like a fun experiment to me.  :)  Ya know I like to mix electricity and bees. :-D

I don’t see any reason it shouldn’t work.  I have taken a different approach when I felt they were running low on stores, but my guess is your approach will probably work fine too.  My strategy has been to heat the whole box up warm enough that the bees can easily move to the honey in the side combs if necessary instead of risking back filling of brood comb.  I believe the hive heat also facilitates a larger spring brood area resulting in a faster spring build up.  Finski has some kind of heat sphere formula to explain it.  Believe it or not, but my bees have been more interested in water in the spring than syrup.

It’s always nice to see beeks experimenting. X:X

[BlueBee]

We still have over 3 feet of snow and predicted temps reaching near zero for a few more days up here

That is just down right DEPRESSING. :'(  What a winter. :evil:  Looks like our cold is staying mostly in the UP for now.  We've still got some piles of snow 3' high, but thank the Good Lord most of it has finally melted from the fields and yards.  Now I gotta use a boat to get back to my bees.  It's going to be tough year.....

[Bush_84]

We just got a thick 4 inches today.  Snow is surely not gone here.  Hopefully April will melt the snow.

[ScituateMA]

i have heating pads (17 watts, not insulated bee hives) on the bottom board and one bee hive has two light bulbs ,one is 4 and other one is 7 watts and i gave sugar water  3 days ago.  bees with heating pad have not received syrup but the bee hive with light bulbs finished all syrup and light bulbs are close to the jar. i gave them protein patties again and hopefully heating pad help them build up quickly. winter is still harsh and we will have very cold nights again in couple days.
i have not lost any beehives this winter but one of them is weak like 3 frames but queen is young. do you think this hive can give honey?
how strong or weak are your bee hives,how many frames of bees in a strong colony? i would  like to hear especially from those are from the same climate zone. mine is 6a

[Bush_84]

I'm in zone 3 I believe.  So I can't really compare much with you.  My one nuc fills it out on a nice day and seems to cover 3 frames on a cold one.  My production hive is three when cold and probably five when nice.  The next month will be interesting as weather should start to turn for the better.  Flying will start.  Maples will bloom. 

[Bush_84]

Just a follow up...the feeder heater works great! Syrup stays pretty warm and the bees seem to like it.  They seem somewhat huddled around it.  They still haven't taken a lot of syrup.  Could that be because I put 2-1 instead of 1-1 in the jars?  Or is that completely unrelated?  I put in 2-1 because I thought they were light, but maybe they aren't as bad as I thought.