Well we survived our first cold snap. The temp went down to 15 degrees night before last, and 25 degrees last night, but now we have a warm spell. Since I didn't do so well with feeding the past month, I am jumping on this last minute opportunity to get some syrup in the hives. Each hive got a quail feeder full of 2:1 sugar syrup. I'll be adding more in a few days. I am thankful for the warm weather we are being blessed with!
The problem with feeding though is robbing. I highly suspect that at least one hive is getting robbed. I have all entrances reduced down to a one-bee-at-a-time hole, but still there is chaos at the front of the hive. I think it is time to shut all hives down for a few days. Robbing is one of those things which causes me the most displeasure as it relates to beekeeping. It is (in my humble opinion) one of the most difficult scenarios to deal with in beekeeping.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
First snow - 10/23/2012
The first snow of the season has arrived tonight. I didn't get into the hives the way I wanted to the past few weeks, so I am hoping that the girls are in good enough shape to manage through the winter. I really wanted to get lots of syrup into the hives before snow fell, but life got in the way. I hate it when that happens. It is supposed to snow the next few days, and then the weather is supposed to warm up again. I will add some more syrup into the feeders then, and hope it will be warm enough for them to take it. I'll definitely be adding some sugar blocks on top of the hive for emergency feed as well.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Apiguard #2 + feeding - 10/2/2012
Today I installed the 2nd dose of Apiguard and inserted a quail feeder of sugar syrup in each hive. I also reduced the hive entrances as much as possible, but it appears one of the hives is getting robbed nonetheless. It wasn't the hive I anticipated (which is good), but I am surprised that it is one of the stronger (or so I thought) hives. I have the entrance narrowed down to a single hole which only one bee at a time can pass through. It is creating quite a log jam however as the foragers are coming in faster than they can enter through the hole, but it does appear the robbers are being deterred. Let's hope that things calm down quickly.
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