# Warre wintering feeder questions



## eriklane (Dec 4, 2012)

I built a Warre out of 3/4" stock and they were delayed in delivery this year, we got them started late May. They filled 2 1/2 boxes and seemed fine, but then we noticed that we could no longer see honey at some point in Dec, and got worried. They're mostly in the top box, and some in the middle one, none in the bottom. So, we poured dry sugar all over the burlap cover, cut a hole in it like a Lang inner cover because they had put so much propolis on it that it wasn't letting any air flow up into the attic, and, the moisture on our plexiglass panes was pretty bad. I then also removed the attic and flipped it upside down, put a layer of insulation in what is now the top of it, and poured 4# of dry sugar in the attic space and covered them. I then put the roof back on. MI had temps below zero on more than 1 day already in Dec and early Jan...so far, they can be seen up in the hole coming out of the top box, eating sugar, usually around 30-50...My question is this-assuming our honey stores are low, will they continue eating all winter, and do you thing the mass of bees is eating, or just a few?

We also got a Russian queen with a colony also in late May and they went gangbusters, filling 2 deeps! The Italians are much more laid back. We have no doubt our Russians will make it but want to make sure the Italians do.

Since it was risky to us to do even what we did, we didn't do the newspaper method of adding sugar directly on the paper on the top bars, with the burlap removed...now I wish we had because it seems that more bees will get sugar that way...versus our way where they have to come thru the hole...


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## Groves (Feb 2, 2012)

If you've seen them eating, then they've found the sugar and you're good.

I think the way you did it is much preferable to dumping sugar on top of the bars. It seems to me that dumping sugar on top of the bars would set them in a panic mode.


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