[Hobie]

While I was away on vacation, a fellow beekeeper dropped off a swarm in my "ready to go" hive in my yard (with my permission!) She told me I need to feed them constantly, because they do not know the local food sources. The hive had about 8 frames of drawn comb and at least 1 frame of capped honey, possibly crystalized.

Is this true? My experience with hiving swarms is a whopping "one" from my own hives. I just put it in a box with drawn comb. Good chance that I have been doing it wrong...

To add to the equation, we had record rains here that week, which may have washed away pollen and nectar from the usual sources.

 

[Iddee]

With one to two days fly time, they will know all the local food sources. The question is, are there sufficient food sources in your area? They will need close to a hundred lbs. of stores to make it through your winter. Will there be that much in your area for them to get before cold weather sets in?

I would feed them. Too much is better than not enough.

 

[Hobie]

We seem to have quite a bit: clover and milkweed and my veggie garden. Privet and raspberries are past, and the neighboring fields are wheat this year. They took a quart of feed yesterday despite the local flora. I'll keep feeding.

 

[rast]

Yep, if they took a quart in a day, keep feeding. When they find something better they will quit taking it. Normally (whatever that is), I will have to feed from the end of this month until the end of Sept. here. Mine are not yet sucking the feed down.

 

[G3farms]

Put the feed to them, they will need it to feed the newly hatced eggs. Since there were already drawn comb in your hive the queen should have been laying by the second day, give the house bees time to clean and polish cells for her to lay in.

I have found most swarms are really rearing to go anyway and most will out do a cut out or even packages......just my experiance though.

G3