# Winter over in south east pa



## Michelle C (Oct 7, 2015)

Question, I am new to beekeeping. I have a top bar hive. Are there any tips and tricks that I need to be aware of while wintering over my bees? I am currently feeding them 2:1 sugar water and they are doing well with that. My neighbor just lost all his bees and we can't figure out why. Also, is it good to go in the hive often? Any tips would be greatly appreciated.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

a wind barrier is helpful if the bees are not up against a structure wall. You want to do one final inspection to get them ready for winter and then you should leave them alone until warmer weather. Some of us use sugar blocks in the hive or fondant if they don't have many bars of capped syrup. If you have a window, you can check on them through there all you want but don't break the propolis seal on the bars by lifting them out unless there is a really good reason to do so.


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## Michelle C (Oct 7, 2015)

Sugar block? What is that? So that is why the bars were so stuck on the top. They don't have alot of "capped" honey but there was a decent amount in the combs. maybe I should stop going in there now?


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

a sugar block is the short cut version of making fondant. For fondant, you cook sugar and water to a specific temperature and then whip it into fluffiness. A sugar block is where you mix enough water into granulated sugar to make it clumpy and dump it in a pie/loaf pan to harden and then put it in the hive. Have you heard of "mountain camp" feeding? That's where you add dry sugar to a hive for emergency feeding. it's messy and the bees tend to haul out the dry stuff.

You should probably be done going in the hives for your part of the area, except to slide in a sugar block once it's dry.


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