Our fall flow had a lull and all the hives were very light. I compressed all of them (removed every frame that was completely empty and left any frame with anything in it). I bought a thousand pounds of sugar and we fed all the hives. The home yard is lighter because of queen rearing so I fed them twice. I have the Mann Lake cap and ladder medium frame feeders. I put two on the bigger hives. I make five gallons at a time. 24 pints of water to 40 pounds of sugar. I painted a line for each. So I fill to the water line with boiling water and to the sugar line with sugar. The syrup is all 5:3 with a heaping tablespoon of ascorbic acid added to the water. I boil the water, add the ascorbic acid, add the sugar, stir until dissolved the turn off the heat. I pour that into three metal pots to cool while I make the next batch. I hope I won’t need to feed again. I will check the weight again in a week or two to see if they are burning it up. The other issue in the fall is getting those young fat bees that can live the six months until spring.
http://bushfarms.com/beeswinter.htm
http://bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm
I saw this frenzy going on and turned the cover over to block the entrance. They were doing this same thing before I blocked it. They would pile up until they would fall in clumps. I slowed it down to try to see it better.
I consider propolizing a good trait for bees (maybe not for the beekeeper). Here is a mating nuc I found this year. The drilled hole is about 5/8". The reduced hole is about 5/16".
It wasn't working right and then it would and then it wouldn't. This is what I found. It couldn't get out, so I left it and used another smoker. It was finally out after two days.
We needed to feed because of a dearth and we still needed to finish building up the 8 frame nucs for winter. We bought 50 six gallon buckets and bought 3,450 pounds of sugar in 25 lb bags. We worked out the maximum strength we could do with hot water from my tap (140 F) and not have it crystallize out. We put one 25 pound bag in each bucket with a heaping tablespoon of ascorbic acid, then 18 pints of water and stir it with a five gallon paint stirrer. After 10 to 30 minutes we stir it again.
