# Top bar hive feeder?



## 8oso8 (May 10, 2015)

I know it is winter yet, but what is the best way to feed the bees over the winter?


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

8oso8 said:


> I know it is winter yet, but what is the best way to feed the bees over the winter?


The best way to feed them over winter is to feed them in the fall so they have it stored in the combs. While it's easy to throw sugar bricks on top of Langstroth frames as "emergency feed", it is a challenge with a top bar hive. One of my TBH's I simply could not get to store feed. They were building comb well into October and then it was too cold for them to take it by the time they started thinking about storing it. I dumped two four pound bags of dry white sugar into the empty space behind their last combs. Then pushed it up and under the combs as best I could so it would be close to the cluster. They had enough moisture that I didn't even bother misting it with water. They stored a lot of it in combs over winter believe it or not. At one point there was so much moisture in the hive that there was standing syrup in the bottom of it from all the sugar + wet. It was a complete mess. I ended up drilling weep holes and shimming the front of the hive up. Syrup was running out of the holes I drilled.

Somehow they over wintered. I scraped the mess out in mid-March and split them about 10 days ago.

Unless you run into a hive that simply won't store syrup, try to avoid what I ended up doing.


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## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

If you have an empty bar with comb on it you can butter in fondant. I've never done this, but I have seen photos. The hard part is doing this and not breaking the comb off the bar I would think.


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

I have also poured sugar into empty combs and lightly sprayed with water to solidify the outside. It worked really well for emergency feed. The bees will not take cold liquids in the winter.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

dudelt said:


> I have also poured sugar into empty combs and lightly sprayed with water to solidify the outside. It worked really well for emergency feed. The bees will not take cold liquids in the winter.


That's why you give them warm liquids to store in the fall.


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## cgybees (Apr 20, 2015)

jwcarlson said:


> That's why you give them warm liquids to store in the fall.


In cold winter climates the big killer of bees is condensation inside the hive. Even feeding too late in the fall can leave you with wet sryup that hasn't dried out properly in the hive and causes too high a moisture level. The best solution is to make sure they have enough honey / feed in the hive going into winter. Bees will also not feed from cold syrup (below 10 degrees C or 40f they have problems). So feeding over winter isn't practical for wet feed and as others have noted sugar is hard to work with in TBH.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

This is what I did for them last November. Seemed like a lot of work and they ate through it pretty quick. So I added sugar bricks the following month. All my hives made it through this past winter. I will do the sugar bricks again, before they are starving. I'd rather they had capped honey/sugar syrup to feed on in Jan/Feb anyway vs. the sugar bricks.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.968950039798193.1073741843.687315994628267&type=3


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## 8oso8 (May 10, 2015)

Thanks a lot!


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## mahobee (Apr 24, 2013)

http://www.organicbeehives.com/id80.html


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