Spring is a difficult time for bees. They have come through the winter and hopefully the queen has had a good rest. The problem is that with the mild winters we have been having it is likely that she will have carried on laying and there will have been brood in the hive for at least part of that time. This means that they will have been using up their stores and may now be very short. It’s far too early to look into the brood box but you need to check if they need feeding and also decide what to feed bees in spring.
The easiest way to see if they need food is to “heft” the hive. This involves gently lifting one corner and assessing how heavy it feels. The experienced beekeeper will be able to do this without any difficulty but a novice will have little or no experience as to how heavy it should feel and so there is another way.
Take off the roof and look in the super. If there is still plenty of honey in there then all is well. If you have fed fondant then you should be able to see the block and easily assess how much is left.
Bees Feeding On Fondant
Here you see a block of fondant which the bees have almost finished and so feeding is required.
If you have decided they need food then what to feed?
Until the weather settles down and a supply of natural forage is imminent continue to feed fondant.
As soon as the weather picks up and there are signs that natural forage is appearing, start feeding a liquid sugar solution. The mixture here is one pound of sugar to one pint of water as the feed is for immediate use and not for the bees to store. Sugar solution will stimulate the queen to start laying and so don’t feed too early. Wait for good weather.
As soon as you see a good flow of natural forage being collected make sure to remove the feeder as you don’t want sugar syrup in the honey.
If you want to receive regular updates from the wonderful world of bees then please follow this link and SUBSCRIBE by filling in your email address in the bottom right hand side of the page.