Fall Beekeeping Part 2: All About Feeding
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- Second part of my main fall management. Another talkie one, and a little cut up, but it gets to the point. I try to feed as close to 4 gallons per colony as possible of thick (2:1) sugar syrup. I would do this pretty much exactly the same whether I was managing single brood chambers or double brood chambers. Supplementing your bees with sugar syrup before the long winter is all about risk management and I encourage everyone who has a significant winter to do it.
Thanks for watching!!!
follow me on instagram @devan.beekeeper
I run two brood boxes on my hives. The 1 brood box method sure seems attractive. Next year, I am going to try at least 1 brood box hive. I liked the information. What I don't get is the down votes.
Great job!!! Always look forward to your next video! Here in Tennessee, beekeeping is quite a bit different from the methods you use, however you furnish thought provoking information that is helpful here in the south! Keep up the good work.
These are the best videos I have used for learning! Thank you SO much!
great vid, glad you live in Canada, I live in NH USA and would rather get tips from someone up north rather than south like Georgia, bee keeping here must be totally different than in the south.
We manage in Western WI if you are interested in more cold weather management videos. We love Devan's Video's. He does a great job!
wow thanks for a great video an great details I have learned a lot ! so many videos I watched give me many unanswered questions but you do a great job explaining...in great detail but yet simple way an I walk away feeling like I have a better understanding !!!! you are a great teacher thanks !!!
Thank you for more good info. I hope you find a way to share some Beekeeping info over the winter. I'm so new and need to gather all info I can to try and make the best choices for my ladies. I'm in Northern US and your reasons for your bee management seem like they would help me too.
Great to see videos from more northern bee keepers. I'm from upstate new York. this is my first year it's been hard to find info about wintering any bees above Virginia
We have very similar weather in Scotland and winter our bees the same way 👌
Enjoy the videos! Wish you were local, would totally enjoy chatting with you on your methods. I live here in the US in New Hampshire. Like the single deep brood. I have a few I am going to winter through with one deep an a med, then in the spring push down to one deep brood. So easy to rip through 1 deep brood box!
I know my bees from my single brood chamber hive are robbing honey from another hive I have that is in a 2 story brood chamber with honey supers. My question is: Will they be able to restore any honey they collect outside the hive or is just food? Also, my wife likes to feed them crystalized honey. SHE HATES IT!
Hi Devan Great to have a Canadian perspective. I am an older new beekeeper so the detail is appreciated. Live in Northern Nova Scotia on a lake with a prevailing NW wind. Often the winter can have days - 20 to - 25c and have seen -30. For that reason and that reason only I choose a poly hive. I will most likely use the single brood box method. Should I put a wind break up in addition to the poly have box. Great job on the videos. Have also watched everything offered by the University of Guelph. Paul Kelly, Research and Apiary Manager from the University will be the guest speaker at the Oct meeting of our association.
Wind breaks are always appreciated by the bees, especially if the prevailing winds blow straight across your hives most days. I try to choose bee locations with the winter wind in mind. Paul is always one of the best presenters at any meeting he's invited to, so I'm sure it will be a good one. He's got a few decades of experience on me.
We have exactly the same seasons here in Marengo, WI. as you described Devan. Thanks so much for sharing as you explain the do's and ways much better than I can. Only difference is our singles don't take 4 gallons from inside feeding because they are still brooded up well into Oct. That gets to late for me to feed syrup. I only fed 2 gallons per colony but than put on a 12 pound sugar rim on top in Nov. to carry them to March.
Ok interesting. Makes sense. And if you're still getting decent brood production into the late fall then that's even better for your winter cluster.
While I have your attention.... When you open feed in the barrels, do your bees get sugar coated. Not being able to fly back to the colonies? No matter how I do it, ours do. They still take all the syrup, so far 100 gallons, but sure seems a lot end up dying in the process. Maybe not enough to worry about but sure looks like a bunch.
Hey Devan, any problems on your end with robbers after pulling the fall feed? Also, how many colonies do you feed per 55 gallon drum? TIA
Love you videos. I like the idea of single box beekeeping. Could you just sacrifice 1 or 2 frames of honey to winter feed?
you must give the bees honey for winter,these people take everything from them and just give them sugar sirup,thats not good
I run single brood boxes and leave the honey for them. Love the single brood box way. Thanks for sharing dude.
If bees are still active and winter foraging and they don’t touch the sugar syrup I’ve given themshould I remove it and how long should I leave it on before it ferments.
Well what I want to know is what is the difference in crystallized honey and granulated sugar as some guys like to feed granulated sugar and I don't amen
Where in the heck do you find 55 gallons of sucrose syrup? wow!
hi, i have a screen bottom,if i leave the inner cover on i get to much condensation,so i remove it and put a box on top with scr,een and shavings,how do i feed then,thanks,on the coast in bc
Is there a late season swarm risk on bigger colonies after removing the honey supers?
I am located at Latitude 33°51'32.18"N, Longitude 73° 45'34.93"E and an Elevation of 5374 feet.I am planning to overwinter my bees in single brood chamber.just like you suggested.brood chamber will be filled with syrup and I will be on my feet to check if they get low on stores,I can show up and feed dry sugar.I am very exited about this experiment.Winters here are cold and snowy which usually start from mid october and last till end of march.What are your thoughts?any suggestions are most welcome
Ok Devan....where in the Hell are you .... we have not heard from you in a long time..... hopefully you are well.... but your fans...... MISS YOU AND YOUR VIDEOS..... come back or at least tell us what is going on............
How well do you think an 8 frame hive would do with a single brood box? I know you use all 10 frame hives. The 8 frame of course isn't as big, but i believe it would do well. You explain that the queen on avg lay 31500 eggs in 21 days. 10 frame capacity are 70,400 & 8 frame is 56320.
Hi Devan, and greetings from way down south. Northern Alabama, U.S. really enjoy your videos, wish you were able to put out more. 3rd year beek here. Loving the hobby, and all the great info out in the internet now avaliable. Keep up the good work, and good health to you up there in Canada!!!
Are you surrounded by conventional or organic farms. Just wondering how conventional crops would affect the bees and their honey. Thanks. Great info. I'm from Ontario also but have lived in the States 23 years
Devan, do you essentially strip ALL of the honey except for any they have stashed in the brood chamber? So essentially most of their overwinter storage is sugar syrup, correct? most in the lower 48 say you MUST leave honey for them, but seems if you only have one brood chamber and you back fill it by feeding sugar syrup, then your bees mostly over winer on sugar syrup. Thanks in advance.
Hey Devon, do you take all your honey off and just use sugar water? You also mention 'quality sugar water", can you share what this means - I'm assuming you are supplementing? Thanks for taking the time on these videos!
Haven't seen any videos from you in a while.
What would you do if you had on and off cold wet then warm days, bee flying like spring weather through Oct and November. I find it hard to find a balance of feeding or not. I'm on the Pacific coast in washington
Jerry
Your videos are extremely helpful Devan. Many thanks for such great information. I'm planning on wintering singles next winter and my climate on the about that a bit 45th parallel is similar to yours I think. My question is about moisture condensation and if that is a problem at all when overwintering singles? For doubles ventilation is needed to control the moisture and prevent water from dripping onto the cluster.
Hi, I have a beginner question, I run single brood boxes on 4 hives and I have 1 hive with 2 brood boxes. This was because on this particular hive the bees were not going up into the super for some reason so I put another brood box and brought up several frames of brood and the bees did come up in to the box. My question is about harvesting supers and then feeding. I'm in Florida and i know we have different conditions than you do in CA. When I remove the supers won't I have way too many bees for just one brood box? I don't want to overpopulate the single brood box but I want to feed in February so I'm built up for the March flow. I know I can not feed with supers. SO when I remove the supers, won't there be too many bees for just one brood box? Won't I be asking for a swarm in the spring? Some of my super frames are half honey and half nectar. Do I just remove them and replace them in spring?
These are great videos and you explain things very well, thx so much for the time and expertise! Always look forward to seeing your videos!
Do you open feed that close to your beehives? Does that not cause a robbing problem in that yard?
I'm fortunate to have a huge amount of ivy near my hives. I harvest fairly late in August (I'm in the UK), and then leave a super on over a single brood box. The bees then spend all of September filling the hive with ivy honey which they overwinter on. Haven't lost a colony yet and I've never fed them
Very good information, thank you. I am still waiting for my first nucs. Rain, rain go away! For awhile anyway. I am learning so much from your videos, I am in south central Pennsylvania. Our winters are cold, wet. I am interested in using single brood chambers, after watching the UofG channel and yours I believe I can do this!
I use styrofoam covered in Hessian as a float in my sugar syrup drums allows the bees to land and walk down to the syrup without falling in a drowning
Great information, in UK we do the same in a single brood and feed. Our Ivy is the last flowering plant as fall arrives and its not nice honey so its best left to them.
Good info, I'm curious. What kind of bees do you have and where do you order them from? I'm in northern Michigan and the climate is similar to yours so a northern climate bred bee is desirable. Also how often do you requeen?
Can you use that crystallized honey to make bee syrup to feed them, if so how?
Devan, great video and information. Do you do anything to your singles physically to prep them for winter after feeding? Example wrap with roof felt or insulate in any way?
Great vid. Do you use essential oils ? Do you make your own syrup and is PH an issue with your syrup?Thanks again !!!
Hi Devan
I'm also in Southern Ontario and looking to get started with honey bees this coming year. Do you sell bees?
Thank you for your videos. I'm also in southern Ontario and love the way you explain things. I'm trying the one brood box this season. My only concern is two of my hives are in a very sheltered area on a roof in the Toronto area and the queens keep laying into late October. In this case should I feed the four gallon at a slower pace so not to get the hives honey bound and stop the queens from laying?Thank you.
Hello is it possible to manage single brood hive in an eight frame hive?
great vid once again. Hope to see more during the coming seasons, especially during those more frequent warm winter days we seem to have now. Please keep us updated, much appreciated info from your vids.
Devan, what about feeding when there is a dearth? Do you then remove the supers and use the same method as winter feeding?
My first year next year I got 2 complete boxes thanks for sharing
Have you made a video on bear fences? How do you do it cheaply, keeping the wires taunt?
Gosh I miss this guys vids.
What do you do about yellow jackets when you're open feeding?
Great videos.
Devan, in winter do your bees start in the center of the box and move in one direction ? Or do you move the cluster to one end of the box and let them work across .
Where can we buy some of your honey? Do you ship? I live in Minnesota thanks.
Thankyou very much for your insight. Your videos are very much appreciated.
Thankyou Devan and Markus
I’m feeding someone else’s bees and Johnny doesn’t know.
if you can please answer how you treat bee paralysis.thank u.
Any more wintering info will be appreciated
THANK YOU finally some Canadian content!!!
Do you lower your ph of your sugar? To be more like honey
Thanks for the wonderful info. Very much enjoyed it.
How are you melting the screens into the top?
How do you mix a large barrel of sugar syrup? Do you have a supersized kettle and stove? Or do you just do many smaller batches and then pour it into the barrel. Please explain or do a video on how to mix such large quantities of syrup. Thanks
When it comes to such large quantities getting ready for winter, I don't mix my own syrup. We order sugar syrup through a broker and it gets delivered in a tanker truck. Toronto has a Redpath sugar refinery that it comes from. It's actually quite a bit more economical this way (although the prices will vary year to year), and the syrup we get is very thick (67% sucrose by weight). This makes it less effort for the bees to dry down and store properly for the winter.
I do not have access to a sugar syrup supplier, so would be interested in how to mix large quantities too!
Good Info, appreciate it all,
Keep the vids coming mate.
Thank you for posting another excellent video!
What do you do for upper ventilation?
Excellent video appreciate wht you do
Little advice for you! Don't use plastic pales they flex very easily with the different temps we have . Your better off using pain cans with the coating inside works way better, this way your not socking the bees bellow. Only need 4-6 penny holes.
Nice keep video coming
Yes, thanks. That's good advice. I'm still experimenting with hive-top methods. I haven't had an issue with these pails YET, but I've heard of pails flexing and losing their vacuum.
Thank you for the video. What do you do in the spring ?
Do you lower the ph of your sugar so it more like honey
Hey Devan, Great video as always!!! I live not to far from you (within 100km) and just have a couple questions. Do you weigh your boxes and the total weight is 80 pounds? If so am I correct to think you only have around 40 pounds of honey at best for the winter? From many reputable sources I have been told we should have 80 or more pounds of honey in our cold climate but this is obviously not the case if you are having success but I just wanted clarification. (I was told my double brood box should weigh a total of 150 pounds to be safe). Also, if you have very little honey now and you feed 4 gallons of 2:1 syrup on average you will increase weight by about 7 pounds per gallon or 28 pounds for the 4 gallons you feed per hive. Does this sound about right or am I missing something? I am going to give your way a try as I can see it works for you but just wanted to get everything straight.
Thanks,
Dave O the numbers don’t add up. A gallon of water generally weighs about 8 lbs. A gallon of honey weighs about 12lbs so I’m guessing a gallon of 2:1 sugar syrup weighs at least 10lbs so 4 gallons is about 40lbs.
johnnydop I had also read that a gallon of 2 to 1 will result in 7 pounds of stored resources.
😂😂😂
Always like your videos. Keep it up.
Thank you for all the good information. and watching your videos has also driven me to try to manage my bees w/o gloves. although i have many questions, my largest is you stated you were taking the supers off in sept. later you show several hives in which the bees are stacking on the front and i guess my question is; are you afraid or do you ever have hives swarm before winter actually hits? i understand some breeds of honey bees ie: russians, are more susceptible to swarming apposed to say italians. i am against the Canadian boarder so we have conceptually the same weather/seasons.
Thank you again and thank you for trying to link other locations for information
Robert
Thanks for watching! To answer your question - No. I am not concerned about the bees swarming in the fall. They know based on day length, resources available, temperatures, etc what time of year it is, and they behave differently. The tendency to swarm just isn't there, they want to maintain a large population to have a better chance of surviving the winter. The times I have seen or heard of swarms in the late summer or very early fall, there were serious management mistakes made with honey-bound brood chambers earlier in the season when the colonies still wanted to be raising brood.
@@DevanRawn Thanks for the great videos and answering the question about possibility of swarming in fall...
Could you please elaborate on the management mistakes which could contribute to bees swarming in the fall.
Devan, what do you do with the uncapped honey in the supers when you remove them in the fall? Some of my supers in the fall have about 80% uncapped honey. I leave this on the hive.
Raj Beekie Good question. I was just thinking the same thing. Hopefully Devan can answer.
Just take the supers and place them kind far from your hives and let the bees come and take it and clean them out. They’ll clean up your supers and take the honey back to the hive! It’s amazing how fast they clean it up
Excellent video 🤙🤙
How can i Contact you??
thank you for the great info.
once again great video. Appreciate your time doing this. Anxious for the spring so I can split a hive and give single brood box a try. BTW, you need a new hat. Are you really allowed to wear that in Canada?
Haha, I think I confuse a lot of people with this hat, sorry. It's not a Chicago Blackhawks hat. It's actually a hat from my old hockey team when i was a teenager and we were also called the blackhawks, it has my old number on the side. The Leafs are going all the way this year!
UND hockey is awsome!
Since the Leafs stole Tavares I’m going to steal some of your bees :p
Hi Devan great video , the problem of crystallization of honey is caused by old honey comb ,this seeded with sugar crystals use new frames or boil old wooden frames in clean water and new wax or foundation . steve
What's wrong with just leaving enough of their harvested raw honey on for their winter nourishment? The healthiest and most resilient bees are not being fed sugar syrup. Can't we fix this way of thinking?
well he explained why
OH ya, honey=money and sugar is cheap, thanks. Forget about the health of the bees.. what was I thinking?
yes beekeeping makes you rich and all beekeepers are greedy and don't care about their bees... lol, he explains why they winter better on sugar in his cold climate
LoL right back to you Markus, you did what people without a response often do which is to resort to extreme statements such as "all beekepers are greedy and don't care about their bees", Ok, he puts sugar syrup in to those "spaces" now, according to you, that is superior to putting full frames of honey in those spaces. Do you even begin to realize how silly you are? Honey, which includes pollen and other nutrients is superior in every possible way to sugar syrup. Before you find another irrational tangent, crystalized honey is used very well by the bees in winter and results in less moisture, which results in less honey bee dysentery. Continue to decline real beneficial information and go with commercial practices if you wish. I prefer to manage in favor of the bees.
Ok, first: I dont like your attitude and the way you are arguing. No need for offence here. Second: I never said honey is not better than sugar, I just said he gives you the answer in the video and explains why he does it. I for myself can say I have been keeping bees for a long time and have never seen a notable difference. Varroa and neonics are the problems, sugar is not. Third: when you say things like "honey=money, forgett about the health" you try to offend other beekeepers. All beekeepers I know, keep bees because they love them and not because they are looking for an easy way to make a lot of money (which is not possible in this case anyway).