Winter Feeding Tips for your honeybees 🐝 - How to feed your bees in the winter without wasting heat!

[Music] [Music] uh in a previous video you saw me put pro sweet feed on this hive there's still a little light i'm convinced they've got stores and they've probably got enough stores but it doesn't hurt on these warm days we're shooting for a high of about 52-54 it's roughly 36. to 42 right now this box has got a good temperature inside what i want to show you is is this feeder i don't want to be in here any longer than i have to but if your bees get light and you have to feed them and you're going to use a inside feeder and use a liquid that liquid needs to be super thick it can't be your spring one to one even though the temperature may fall with this pro sweep feed it is so thick it just thickens up the bees will actually be able to get on top of it and walk and feed and utilize that on these warm days because like i said even though the temperature exterior is going to be 50s low 50s that sun beating on that box is putting pushing this interior temperature that's what matters these bees are still active in here they're feeding they're using winter stores i'm going to show you how how i want to feed these bees with the liquid and then we're going to move out of it we're going to try to do this as quickly as we can and then i'm going to give you a couple other winter feed tips this is remember this is the feeder this feeder is already installed it's on this side it's against the wall going to open it up we're going to refill it so i'm not installing a feeder it's already here i want to get this off and out of the way you're going to see you may see this is just you see the moisture that has accumulated here you're gonna see a little bit of dry mold this is moisture that's due to the condensation these bees are in here they're still pretty tight clustered i'm going to lay that over it if i know you can't feel it on the video but if you'll see these bees see them coming up here to check on me they got heat rushing out of that hole we want to stop that right so we're going to slide this over their hole that's going to going to catch their heat hold their heat in the box we're going to bust the inner cover loose all i want to do is i don't want to disturb them any more than i have to i know where the feeder's at now i'm going to scoop this over and expose that feeder that feeder is dry these bees are clustered out here i don't want to be here very long i'm letting heat out of that crack you see how super thick this is these bees will take advantage of this inside the hive [Music] okay i can hear them revving up now that we're losing heat we don't want to be here long [Music] that's the program on liquid set yourself up where you know where that if if i had had a deep feeder in the bottom box i wouldn't have bothered this at all any of it i would have cracked this box loose slid that super over filled it right there the reason i don't do that is with a jug it's hard to give yourself enough room uh the the professionals the the guys that are out there making a living doing this they got a tanker on their truck with it with a knot a gas nozzle okay totally different deal this is how you need to do this if you got to do it in the winter it's cold but we've we've just taken care of they've got feed we're gonna button them back up [Music] okay we were there i don't know it couldn't have been long well let's say that took us a minute and a half to do that entire feed they're done they're fed i'm not worrying about it that liquid's been in the shop it's warm it's on there box is hot they'll feed in it not uncap those valuable story [Music] hey john sir you told me before that bees didn't like black correct you have black gloves on what's up with that i didn't have any blue ones well we might need to get you some blue gloves you use what you got right [Music] what we're going to do with this box of bees i'm going to show you another feed application that application is pro winter available at the store you can buy this stuff in bulk this i've used this now for about six years it is a great feed is a high carbohydrate has a certain percentage of essential oils it has a percentage of protein it's it's way better than feeding them sugar now with that being said sugar is perfectly fine to feed bees and i'm going to show you a method to put that on your bees in just a moment but for right now i want to i want to give you a a insight into how i i install this if you read the directions it's going to tell you totally opposite of what i'm going to show you um if you're a follow the directions person um by all means do that where we're at in central arkansas we have temperature spikes uh this morning it's 19 we're going to hit a high in the 50s tomorrow it's going to be even warmer than that our low is going to be around in the 30s when it's when it's doing this peaks and valleys of temperatures this stuff becomes close to liquid it it it becomes pliable enough that it will move it will spread and run and drip if you read the directions there they're telling you to put an amount of this directly above the winter cluster um if you maintained a certain temperature all winter long i honestly believe that's perfectly fine where you have these temperature spikes i i don't believe that i don't recommend it to be fed that way so i'm going to show you how i feed it then you make the call but this is a great feed that's that's the bottom line this is a very large colony of bees these bees are stacked in here they're still down in the deep they're up into the mid um they have had a lot of honey but they're getting light i've checked this the weight on this hive and i can my my brain tells me that the last time i lifted this it was a lot heavier it was just a block could hardly move it off the stand i'm going to show you how to install this and they're going to have a little bit extra feed it's it's simple it's also fast and effective the problem with a great big huge colony of bees you you immediately think how can that be a problem uh because i got this big old box of bees they're doing great okay we just talked about we get these two and three and four days in a row warm and then we're gonna go right back to super cold with that these bees get out they search for forage when they come back with no nectar they might get a little pollen they may not they come in they're hungry they're like us we've worked all day we've come in we've found nothing to eat we're going to eat they uncap honey stores they start feeding on it they lighten those winter resources give them something to eat when they come back so that they have that that honey in the box for that that spring buildup so let's let's put some feed on these and uh [Music] i'm going to get me a brick handy i want to be able to close that vent hole there up here right here at the top there's a little bit of wax at the top i've scooted this this block over to the edge of that vent hole i'm going to i'm slowing down further then here's the vent hole they're going to come up right there to eat i'm going to put that right there i'm doing this for for two things right now i don't have bees pouring up out of their mad and i'm dealing with them number two i'm holding heat in that box it's important to do that um by doing this i'm not breaking the seal on any of these boxes i'm putting it up top the temperature between the lid and this bee space will heat this will stay pliable these bees will eat this with their mandibles versus their spout and ingesting a cool liquid so great way to feed let me let me show you what this looks like in the bucket it literally looks like you've melted a sack of sugar babies um and that you know now they're in this goop in the bottom what i do there are people who who really do a great job with winter feeding they take their time they'll stay in the kitchen they'll dip this out with an ice cream scoop they'll put approximately a pound of this on wax paper put a mound in the middle a piece of wax paper over top and roll it out with the with the wife's rolling pin don't get it dirty guys you'll it's just not worth that but clean up your mess when you're done they pre-make these patties super idea as you can tell i'm not that guy it's amazing how long a small amount of this will last a colony of bees especially if they do have honey stores this is merely an insurance policy you're gonna we're getting this down our goal is to get this down roughly this thickness so that we're not holding up the lid now you i'm holding that in the sun and you can already tell it's getting soft it's already getting super super pliable i'm shooting for about three eighths to a quarter of an inch thick i want this right here where these bees can find it i'm gonna kind of cheat this brick a little bit i'm gonna break a little over into that hole okay we've got that thinned out we haven't been here too awful long these have already found it if you'll notice they're right here these bees are already feeding what i didn't want to do is let them get too involved with that before i get them capped off that's how much they love this and that's what keeps them out of those honey stores and simple quick and easy uh relatively inexpensive but i promise you this it's cheaper than buying bees [Music] look at this guys [Music] another wintertime feeding option comes with a few twists and tips and tricks and trade um it's real simple super simple uh it's going to require a i prefer a shallow super it's going to require a hive top feeder granulated cane sugar and a method in which to put this on the bees while keeping heat and bees in the box in this box we're actually going to be creating a a void that we don't want that's why we removed these supers late fall if there wasn't anything in them we don't want that empty attic space that's where all your heat's going um it's not staying down here where your bees are clustered keeping them warm and keeping that brood going um you're gonna you're gonna get this this is all gonna come to you as i do it i'm gonna do it relatively slow um so that you see step by step how this happens so bear with me you've seen me lay those bricks down in the past to cover that interior hole um great idea i'm gonna do something a little bit different to put this sugar application on them and you'll see why first thing i want to do is i want to prepare this feeder this is a very simple feeder it uh has a dome interior it has a hole all the way through the dome that protrudes is corrugated it's rough interior exterior this is your feed well if i was were feeding liquid i would probably do all this the same with the exception of the insulation and i would need this feed shield what that does that's a drowning eliminator that's a beekeeper getting stung guard okay bees are going to enter here from the frames or the portal on the inner cover they're going to come up that corrugation they're going to roll over behind this to wherever the liquid depth is and they're going to they're going to circle this and they're going to feed this down your liquid is going to come under the dome and it's going to rise to a level about right there's where you would start and they'll take it down we're not feeding liquid i told you all that in the event that you do because this is a great feeder it's going to double for winter it's going to double spring and summer so this is removed we now have the open feeder grant i'm trying not i know it's out of the kitchen trying not to get it dirty you're gonna put your sugar down inside your feed tray there again plain old white granulated not powder granulated cane sugar i'm not concerned with the honeybees having enough stored honey at this moment we're going to continually get warmer as we head towards february when february gets here can be the game changer you know last year b started swarming i had i had a hive swarm here uh march the second last year just wasn't supposed to happen wasn't ready for it it was an unseasonable deal always strive to be ready for those types of things i said that to say between now and march the first these bees could starve to death due to population insurance okay it's an insurance policy we're going to crack this lid i've got a paper portfolio binder just a plastic carry your drawings paper um was laying around i'm going to utilize it we've got our feed installed into the feeder we're gonna put down the little portfolio over the keyhole you can see it through this clear plastic okay that's my target area for the bees to come up beside this frame and enter this feeder here's how this works you take your feeder we've got our sugar we've removed the cup it has a cross hair in the bottom put it down right there over that frame center of the hole hold this in place pull that out your feeder is installed bees didn't pour up out of there it's all good it's setting over them right in the position we want it in okay next step we're going to create a heat loss chamber if we don't do something about this it's doing a couple things it's sucking the heat up out of this box into this void and the bees are losing that heat so we're going to insulate it we're going to do that with burlap sacks okay these are relatively inexpensive you can pick them up at most any feed stores i purchased mine from our local co-op here in russellville [Music] you put down this insulation now not only is this making this top box warmer the condensation that formed on this lid that's creating this mold and right here you can see the water droplets okay there's the water that's what we're wanting to capture by wicking method which is our burlap burlap is cheap bees are expensive mold will not hurt your bees don't be concerned okay went ahead and cleaned that up because that's what we do as beekeepers i'm going to allow two [Music] of these in this hive that's gonna that's gonna really make this warmer and it's going to help there again with that moisture i'm not concerned with filling this box up i'm concerned with keeping it warm around that feeder that's where those bees are going to be doing doing their work i want it to be warm for them all right this is a shallow super 10 frame we've got our sugar in the feeder we've got our feeder installed we've got our insulating wicking material in i think it'd be fine to use newspaper crepe paper or whatever you've got available that will do what it is that we want to do now we're as you can tell we've got bees are really active this morning um so i'm gonna close this up before i trap some bees that can't return that is a very simple effective method [Music] to feed these bees over winter i could have done that with with no suit i don't recommend that i never recommend that you go out here without that smoker smoking and your protective gear on it just takes that that one time that you know hey i didn't see it coming i'd done it a hundred times and and it ended up you know getting me stung up and it was a bad experience all of these methods work i hope you've learned something i appreciate your time i appreciate you watching me and until you see us again roll that beautiful bee footage thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Central Beekeepers Supply

Views: 13,380

Keywords: beekeeping 101, how to, how to start beekeeping, new to beekeeping, honeybee, bee supply, beekeeping supplies, how to beekeeping hobby, beekeeping videos, beekeeping for beginners, feeding bees, Winter feeding, winter feeding honey bees, honeybees, seasoned apiarist, feeding bees in winter, How to feed your bees in winter, beekeeper supply

Id: eE78BBmqCgE

Length: 25min 12sec (1512 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021