Autumn is here in Melbourne and its time to ensure that your hive is ready for winter and has enough supplies to last until spring. This year has been particularly poor for bees and many colonies have little honey supplies.
There is only about four weeks before the season ends and its too cool for bees to be fed liquid feed.
Check your hives and, if they are short of honey, take off any honey boxes and start feeding them now. If you are fortunate to have honey or nectar frames, move them to the brood box as brood frames become empty.
You should be aiming for the following equivalent frames of honey within the brood box:
- 4 to 5 for an 8 frame wooden box hive
- 5 frames for an 8 frame wooden box hive
- 3 to 4 frames for a 9 or 10 frame polystyrene box hive.
Feed them sugar syrup 2 sugar to 1 water and only provide what they can consume over 2 days. Repeat until they have enough supplies. Do not feed if you have a honey box on.
Tony Wilsmore
Suburban Bees