The Bee Bench › Overwinter Feed

❄️ Overwinter Feed

Starvation kills more colonies in March than cold ever does in January. Here's what they need, what they've got, and what it takes to close the gap.

Your winter

Hives to feed

What they have now

Deep frames of honey

Medium frames of honey

Sugar price ($/lb)

Count frames that are genuinely full and capped, both sides. Two half-full frames make one. If you'd rather heft than count: a wintering double-deep that you can barely tip off the stand from the back is about right.

—

short per hive

To make up the difference

2:1 syrup per hive

—

Total syrup

—

Sugar to buy

—

Sugar cost

—

Reckoned on 2:1 syrup, which carries about 7.4 lb of sugar per gallon. They burn a little of it doing the work of curing it, so treat this as the floor rather than the ceiling — and expect to refill a top feeder several times.

Target stores	Where
40–50 lb	Deep south, zone 8 and warmer — short winter, they keep flying.
55–65 lb	Upper south, zone 7.
70–90 lb	Mid-Atlantic and Ohio Valley, zone 6. South-central Pennsylvania sits here.
85–95 lb	Northern, zone 5 — New England, upper Midwest.
90–110 lb	Zone 4 and colder. Long cluster, no mid-winter breaks.

Feed early or don't bother. Once nights sit below about 50 °F they stop taking syrup down, and syrup they can't cure and cap adds moisture to a hive that doesn't need any. In this part of Pennsylvania that means finishing in September, early October at the outside. After that your options are solid: fondant, a candy board, or dry sugar on newspaper over the top bars.

Heft, don't guess, all winter. Tip the back of the hive up an inch every few weeks. You will learn what full and empty feel like faster than any chart can teach you, and it costs the colony nothing.

Mixing the syrup →