The "Need for Feed"

I came home early today to look at the bees and assess if they need any feeding. It was just above freezing (3C) and wasn't windy so it seemed a good time to quickly open the hive and take a look to see if I should add any feed.  To help, last night Fred and I prepared some 2" rims for the hive.  These, placed on the top of the brood box provide sufficient space above the frames, but under the inner cover to place a zip-loc bag full of sugar mush.

So, before opening the hives I lifted them to see how heavy they were.  I was actually surprised as I expected them to be really light.  "Heavy-ish" was my impression - but I still didn't know if that was good or bad; I just haven't been doing this long enough!

After I had assessed the "need for feed", (around 3pm) I opened the small hive (the one with only one deep) and found a large (well I thought it was large) cluster at the top of the frames!  I was very surprised at how large it was - a big ball of bees!!!  Brilliant news, the hive seems to be thriving!!  Still, after a bit of fluster on my part, I smoked the bees down so I could place the mush on the frames over the cluster, put on the rim and covered it up!  I didn't check for brood - I'll wait for a warmer day.

The larger hive (this has two deeps with a super sandwiched inbetween) was next.  I lifted the top cover to find a few dead bees.  Then, looking in the top deep I saw there were some more bees milling around and on lifting a frame I saw yet more and some honey still present in the comb. The bees are clearly clustering in the super.  I don't think there is enough honey for them to move up to the top deep, but I reckon if the first hive is anything to go by there is probably enough honey in the hive for now.  Again, I'll wait for a warm day before I look more deeply in the hive. I expect there may be brood in the super which would be annoying, but not the end of the world!  I nevertheless placed the sugar mush on the top of the top deep, but I don't think they will take it. But you never know.

Overall I'm very happy with what I found.  It looks pretty good so far and I think it is a real possibility the bees in both hives will overwinter successfully!

Ted's Sugar Mush :  8 parts granulated sugar, 1 part water. Mixed together to form a mush and placed in zip-loc bags over the top of the frames.  Just cut a couple of slits in the top of the bag.