My first hive has been thriving. The first hive body is full with eggs, brood, and food stores as well as capped honey. I added a second hive body 2 weeks ago. I have been feeding sugar syrup all along. The bees' consumption of the syrup has been on the increase, and foraging is down, very little pollen is coming in. The bees appear to be storing the sugar water in the new hive body. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? should I keep feeding or not? Help Please!
Sugar water is intended to get bees through lean times, and probably May in Mississippi isn't all that lean! Honey from sugar water is blah. Stop feeding and the bees will start foraging for nectar within a 3 mile radius. They bring in pollen when they are building brood and feeding babies. We stopped feeding our bees in early April, as soon as we figured there was enough in bloom to encourage them to find their own food. My husband added another super to our most active hive, which now has three supers, and another super to the lesser, newer hives, which makes two supers on those. Hint: bees are not nearly as industrious as advertised. They have great press agents! They will take the easy way out (sugar water) over working any day.
MG is right, bees will not fly past one group of flowers to get to another group, no matter how much more desirable (in our opinion) the more distant nectar source is... Hank
New2it33, you seem to have a natural knack for beekeeping! Congratulations on your thriving hive, and also to your "ladies" who are obviously good workers. Keep checking your supers. If the honey store hits maximum, the bees could swarm, taking a young queen with them. Swarms are easy to capture, but you have to have a hive and a super ready to accomodate them. You can prevent swarming by giving the bees plenty of spots to store their honey.
MG< thanks for the compliment. I am thoroughly enjoying the ladies! I just wish hive #2 were doing as well as hive #1. Well, I am working on that, and hope I can get it turned around.
