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| Triple digits are the harbinger of the summer dearth. |
To be fair, this was mainly due to the car sitting in a hot parking lot all day. By the time I picked up my kiddo and made it a few miles down the road, the temp had gone down to the high 80s, which really is about average for this time of year.
At first glance, it seems kind of counter intuitive that the deep south would have a short honey flow. But upon further inspection you see that when the temps get this high this early things start getting dry and crispy pretty early. I generally pull honey around the Fourth of July which is kind of late for my area, but it's a that I usually have a couple of days off work to do it. That means the dreaded summer dearth (or the June Gap as Ron over on The Bad Beekeeping Blog calls it). And that means that the age old question about feeding comes up.
There are quite a few opinions about this. I'm sure you're all shocked to hear that. The old saying goes that if you ask 10 beekeepers a question then you'll get 11 different answers. Some people believe that bees should never be fed as natural sources of food are best. Some people believe that you should always feed under certain conditions (for example, when I installed my first package, the advice was to feed until fall).
My personal opinion is that you should feed them when they need it. Or when the beekeeper is trying to encourage them to do something specific. Last year, in mid-September, my hives were all very much underweight. The fall flow had failed and they were wholly unprepared for winter. I fed them each about a gallon of 2:1 syrup every night to every other night for three weeks in order to get them up to weight. Between two hives and a nuc I went through at least 100 lbs of sugar. But everyone pulled through winter (and early spring) with a little in the way of stores left to spare.
So why am I talking about feeding now? The outyard hive that has had the queen issues this year has only barely started to touch the top box of foundation that they have had on and off (mostly on) from the early-April split. As of Sunday, they had a laying queen so as long as nothing goes off the rails again, I've got until late October to get them ready for winter. I decided to go ahead and give them a couple of liters of 1:1 syrup to try to a.) draw them up into the top box and b.) encourage them to draw out the comb. Will they use it? Who knows. Some hives will not take syrup if there is a natural flow on and some will take whatever you give them. I guess I'll find out when I check on them this afternoon.
For the purpose of this post, let's assume that we are just talking about feeding syrup. There are other considerations to take into account like pollen vs. pollen sub, but the hive I'm working with seems to have plenty of stored pollen and bee bread for this time of year.
At first glance, it seems kind of counter intuitive that the deep south would have a short honey flow. But upon further inspection you see that when the temps get this high this early things start getting dry and crispy pretty early. I generally pull honey around the Fourth of July which is kind of late for my area, but it's a that I usually have a couple of days off work to do it. That means the dreaded summer dearth (or the June Gap as Ron over on The Bad Beekeeping Blog calls it). And that means that the age old question about feeding comes up.
There are quite a few opinions about this. I'm sure you're all shocked to hear that. The old saying goes that if you ask 10 beekeepers a question then you'll get 11 different answers. Some people believe that bees should never be fed as natural sources of food are best. Some people believe that you should always feed under certain conditions (for example, when I installed my first package, the advice was to feed until fall).
My personal opinion is that you should feed them when they need it. Or when the beekeeper is trying to encourage them to do something specific. Last year, in mid-September, my hives were all very much underweight. The fall flow had failed and they were wholly unprepared for winter. I fed them each about a gallon of 2:1 syrup every night to every other night for three weeks in order to get them up to weight. Between two hives and a nuc I went through at least 100 lbs of sugar. But everyone pulled through winter (and early spring) with a little in the way of stores left to spare.
So why am I talking about feeding now? The outyard hive that has had the queen issues this year has only barely started to touch the top box of foundation that they have had on and off (mostly on) from the early-April split. As of Sunday, they had a laying queen so as long as nothing goes off the rails again, I've got until late October to get them ready for winter. I decided to go ahead and give them a couple of liters of 1:1 syrup to try to a.) draw them up into the top box and b.) encourage them to draw out the comb. Will they use it? Who knows. Some hives will not take syrup if there is a natural flow on and some will take whatever you give them. I guess I'll find out when I check on them this afternoon.
For the purpose of this post, let's assume that we are just talking about feeding syrup. There are other considerations to take into account like pollen vs. pollen sub, but the hive I'm working with seems to have plenty of stored pollen and bee bread for this time of year.
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