As beekeepers, we learn very quickly about dearth and flow. Dearth is when the flowers have dried up and are no longer feeding our bees, while the flow is when nectar and pollen are abundant.
During dearth, some hives can starve if not given supplemental feedings, and there are a few ways to accomplish this and lots of opinions on it as well.
For us, we make a sugar syrup and add Honey-B-Healthy in the summertime, and in the winter we feed them Fondant. We also leave any honey they make the rest of this year for them to eat. If they make too much, we take it out and freeze it for later use to ensure the queen has plenty of room to lay eggs.
We used to think we should feed the heck out of them after pulling all the honey out during a harvest so they would stay healthy and strong, but we have since learned we should give them only what they can eat in a few days. Overfeeding can cause the bees to be “honey-bound”. This means the bees have filled all the empty cells with sugar syrup, leaving no place for the queen to lay her eggs. This is bad, of course.
Most of us consider the honey made from feedings to be adulterated, and we do not want that honey to be harvested, as it’s not the natural honey we’d get from plant-based nectar. It’s fine to feed the bees during dearth, since they have already made it into honey and we won’t be harvesting until next year after flows.
We had some honey George had left over from feedings. He had kept these frames in the cooler, and now that we have harvested our honey and it’s time to feed the bees, he set out a couple of frames for them to clean.
They are fighting over it! I slowed the video so you can see the girls rolling around. This is a sure-fire way to tell we are indeed in dearth!
♥Bee Happy♥
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