Budding Cottage

In the evening I checked how the bees were doing with their sugar syrup.

Hive A were definitely gulping it down, and guarding the syrup container (or at least fanning for reinforcements just around the porter bee escape on the crown board when they saw me – I had accidentally left the porter bee escape open so the bees can get into the eke).  I gave them an additional pint.

Hive B however had not found their syrup.  One lone bee eyed me through the crown board when I lifted the feeder, and then she wandered off, so I dripped some syrup onto the top frame below the crown board and replaced the feeder.  Ah well, I guess the bees imposed a 2 day non feed rule on themselves.  Still at least this means less likelihood of having any thing nasty in their stomachs if they start to work on feeding any brood.

Both hives were very quiet overnight, though Hive A was indeed the most interested in checking out what I was up to – probably because I left the bee escape open.  Mistake!

17 May 2011

Well, what I learned from the Malvern & Upton beekeepers  group was that it is not so bad to have left a bee escape open.  Whilst some beekeepers don’t, others think that the extra ventilation is no bad thing, preventing damp and condensation and allowing the bees to evaporate the honey down better.

So, checked this evening on the syrup situation and found that both hives had guzzled down around 3 pints each since last Thursday (5 days) – so did a rapid top up. So, hive B have definitely found the sugar syrup.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 11th, 2011 at 9:22 am and is filed under Bees, Hive A original, Hive B (Swarm bees from Malvern). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.