Winter Feeding My Bees

A couple of posts ago I mentioned how I was going to try putting ziplock bags of syrup on the frames of the upper brood chamber in my hive. Then the weather got too cold to check right away on whether this was successful. Today was warm enough I made some new syrup to put in a Boardman feeder (this is the kind that usually goes on the entrance of the hive) with just a pint jar instead of a quart.

Bronwyn came out to open the hive with me, and since it was only a quicky and I didn't need my smoker lit that long, of course the darn thing stayed lit, is still lit, and is burning itself out on my back porch as I write this. Hmm. I'm going to get the technique down one of these days.

We discovered the bees had quite liked the bags of syrup. They were mostly empty, and one had slipped down alongside the frames. I had removed a frame last fall and have not replaced it. Also in that crevice was quite a pile of dead bees. It's several inches deep. I don't know if this many dead bees is normal because I have quite a large pile in front of the hive too. It seems there are still many bees left, so I don't know if I am really worried. Yet.

I'll take pictures tomorrow. I'm going to be swapping the places of the two brood chambers/deeps. The upper one will go on the bottom. That's the one where the bee cluster is right now. The lower deep will become the upper one. This is to help reduce the urge to swarm because it kind of tricks the bees into thinking they still have a lot of room in their hive. This will also be the first time I have looked at the lower deep since I combined hives last summer because I haven't wanted to disturb things.

More to come!