After Installing a Nuc – Building Up the Colony
2025-03-09
No Comments
Written by : Suzanne Wiebe
Winter Feeding Honey Bees at SilverCreek Apiary
Our beekeeping journey changed dramatically when we learned two things. The first was when we listened to a conference video from Randy Oliver. He talked about inspecting hives, and feeding, in the snow. The second, we learned that a majority of winter losses were in March, due to starvation.
When is Winter? We consider winter to start in October when we wrap the hives, and end when the pollen ends in March. The dates in March depend on the weather.
In 2023, we started feeding in late March, early April. Now, 2025, we are feeding mid march. The Pollen in our area starts around March1 to March 15. The ‘flow’ in our area starts roughly May 15. So Spring feeding should start 6 weeks before, which means winter feeding must end the last week of March.
- We have seen hives that were full of honey, with 1 hive alive fondant, empty in March.
- Bees start to build up in late February, but the Maple pollen doesn’t start until the first/second week of March.
- We find that 25% of the hives that are fed hive alive build up faster in the spring.
- Our overwintering survival rate has increased from 30 – 50%, to 70-95% when we did 3 things:
- switched to condensing hives. Did not unwrap until May 15.
- fed Hive Alive fondant in Nov and Feb,
- Fed Pollen Patties in late March added probiotics, instead of waiting until May.
- Fed Pollen Patties, hive alive, probiotics, Ultrabee, and raw pollen in the fall to make sure the bees go into winter strong.
What We Feed Honey Bees
- Probiotics
- Amino acids
- Supplement with amino acids
- Pollen supplement
- Pollen
- Sugar Water and Dry Sugar
- Hive alive fondant
- Hive alive liquid supplement
The university of Guelph is working on a good formula to feed bees. We will keep you up to date when they are able to release their research.
The only product we have endorsed here is Hive Alive and Ultra bee. This is because it is the only product that has enough research to validate their claims, and anecdotal evidence that proves it works in the field.
We are not endorsing any one particular product, or company. Our recipe and methods are based on our own research, the local flora and fauna. Your bees may need different supplements. You may feed different times of the year based on weather, temperature, and snow levels.
Why We Feed Honey Bees
- It is more cost effective to spend $2000 on food, and save 20% of our hives, than to lose $10 – $15000 of hives.
- It is also more cost effective to feed and generate more nucs/splits in a year, than to not feed, and have smaller hives.
- We like the queen acceptance, and the higher percentage of bred queens, when we feed.
- The flora and fauna in our environment is limited by agriculture and lawncare. It doesn’t provide all the amino acids, nutrients, etc that bees need to thrive. We cannot limit the bee’s diet and expect them to thrive like they would if the world was still grasslands, meadows, and wet lands.
- Nature ‘finds a way’, we provide our bees with probiotics, amino acids, and pollen to give their immune system the strongest opportunity to do what nature meant it to do.
These pictures show strong hives, and weak hives, dead outs, and hives that didn’t make it through the winter.
The purpose is to show you that there is no ‘majic’ formula’ that will save a sick, weak hive, or a hive with a poor queen.
We feed to give our bees the best chance at survival, and to help the bees build up in the spring.
In our area, waiting until May to start building up means that we lose most of the Maple pollen and early nectar flow. We want our hives to build up earlier.
Feeding to Over Winter Honey Bee Hives
Late October – Early November
We make sure the bees have 40lb (4 months) worth of honey in their hives. We feed sugar water for our breeder boxes. We save this honey and feed it back to the bees (in the same bee yard) in the winter.
We feed sugar water September till Mid October to let the bees build up their honey. We add hive alive to the sugar water so that the honey and resources will be the best we can give.
In the fall, November, we add 1 hive alive fondant. At the moment we have not found another product that produces the same results.
One trick we took from Dancing Bee Equipment was to put wet paper on top of the brood frames and then put 1 – 5lb of sugar on the frames. We do not cover the entire frames like Dancing bee does, because we also have comb in the shims. We leave shims on the hives all year.
Bees cannot eat dry sugar, so we spray the top of the sugar liberally with hive alive water. As the winter progresses the sugar will absorb water, and the bees will be able to eat it in February and March.
We have tried candy board, and dry sugar, and find the bees eat the dry sugar faster than the candy board. We also found that they are more likely to poop on candy board, but we see almost no poop on dry sugar.
Warm Day late February or Early March
We do not find the temperature will harm the bees. We will open a hive at Zero Celsius. However, we will not open a hive with any wind, or on a damp cloudy day. We will wait until the sun is shining and the bees are flying.
That said, I have heard many rumours that state you should not open a hive on sunny days in the winter. These claim that if a bee leaves a hive through the top, it will not find it’s way back inside the hive. I believe there are observations that demonstrate this. My own observation is that, if this were true, the next day we should see hundreds of dead bees on the ground around the hives. We do see some bees, but not the hundreds we expect after opening 30 hives in one afternoon.
We open the hive, and will add more Hive Alive Fondant, and chunks of dry sugar which has started to absorb some humidity in the shop. If the sugar is too dry we use a squirt bottle to mist the sugar well with a mixture of water and supplement.
Late March or Early April
Depending on how warm the winter is, we will add our own mixture of pollen patties. We only add pollen to the mixture that has bee frozen.
We will continue feeding.
The first 2 weeks of April are usually warm, followed by a cold snap. If the bees do not have food through this cold snap they will cannibalize their larva.
When the last April cold spell ends we will start feeding sugar water.
Post tags :
Share :
Latest Post
How to Install a Nuc & Keep a Nuc Alive Year 1
2025-03-08
No Comments
How to Install a Nuc and Keep a Nuc Alive Year 1 – Part 1
2025-03-08
No Comments
Are Antibiotics and Probiotics Necessary for Sustainable Beekeeping?
2025-03-03
No Comments
Categories
Our Journey
This blog is our beekeeping Story, based on our experience. It is not meant to be an adorative or academic resource.
Reserve Your Nuc
Early nucs in May often sell out before March. Do not wait and be disappointed.
