12 days of experience - How long to feed?

[Bee1]

Hello World.  I'm new to beekeeping and have basic questions.

I have only had bees, 1 pkg + queen, for 12 days now.   I've been feeding them sugar water (1:2  sugar:water) since their arrival.

My question is:   How long do I need to continue feeding them sugar water?  Days? Weeks? Months? And/Or, how do I determine when to stop?  And How quickly will they starve or be in trouble if I am away?   I will be away for 5 days next week.

Also, I posted a queston re:entrance reducers in the greetings board, please check it out if you want to offer an opionion to that question too.

Thanks,
Bee1

FYI.
I'm in Durham NC, weather is getting hot (80o today),
At least some of the bees are coming home with pollen in their pollen sacs -
I went into the hive 1 x to check on/for the queen on found her!  This was exciting however I was not able to tell if there was any brood... probably too soon... 

[Shizzell]

Bee1, congrats to the wonderful world of bee problem solving.

I remember I fed my bees for around 2 weeks a 2:1 syrup when I was starting out.
Usually feed the bees until 1 of these things occurs:

1. The frames start massively filling up with the syrup. (A Little bit is fine in the beginning)
2. The flow started
3. The bees stop taking the syrup and collecting instead

I would read up around the forums more

Jake


 

[TwT]

when starting a package feed 1-1 sugar syrup, feed until the quiet taking it or until they have atlest 1 deep drawn out with comb or 2 deeps thats up to you.

[Bee1]

Hello and thanks for the replies.  I now see the basic logic re: how long to feed w/ sugar h20, which I will sweeten. 

..., feed until the quiet taking it or until they have atlest 1 deep drawn out with comb or 2 deeps thats up to you.

One follow question which may be obvious..  but when you say  "at least 1 deep drawn out" .... are we talking about all 10 frames (or most of them) or one frame. 

There is so much to learn, including how to mine the forums for the information I need.  Yesterday I did search the forum are read up on robbing behavior --  it was still difficult to determine what was going on at my hive but now I believe it was just a bottleneck at the door.   Things are much calmer and more orderly today -- with the entrance reducer on the larger opening.   

Bee1

 

[Shizzell]

When people talk about "deeps" they mean deep boxes. So, yes, one full deep is drawn. However, I wouldn't wait until then to pull them off. The hives tend to not grow as much, due to the fact they are filling the comb with sugar syrup. And when you have all 10 frames drawn, you shouldn't have only 1 super on anyways. I put another deep on. (I always use deeps, I don't use any mediums or shallows. It's easier to switch if i ever need to) A general rule of thumb is to add another chamber when 7 of 10 frames are drawn, not necessarily full.

Jake

[Bee1]

Thanks Jake.

[TwT]

maybe I should have made it more clear sorry, anytime you get 7 frames in a deep or super always add another hive body, some like to only use a single deep and a medium for brood chambers , that's why I said 1 or 2 deeps, I was in a hurry this morning when I posted.....