Champing at the bit.....preps for OSR !

[greengumbo]

Okay so its still mid-feb and chances of a large snow dump are still good.

However, yesterday and last weeks sunny days saw all 4 hives active and bees flying off somewhere for forage.

So how and when do people prepare for OSR ? I have a field about 400m away and I think flowering here is usually May.

Do people feed light syrup sometime to stimulate expansion ? Pollen feed or substitute ?

My local BKA does a course on this but thought I would ask the forum for some pointers as well tips and hints.

[Black Comb]

This thread might be of help.

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?1530-Management-for-OSR

[Charlie]

To prepare for OSR, it pays to feed a good quality protein supplement 6 weeks before the flow. This has the effect of stimulating brood rearing, increasing colony populations in time for nectar gathering.
Feeding a light syrup alongside will also help, the two together are an awesome combination.

[snimmo243]

I've started feeding syrup (a couple of weeks ago) for osr, how long should you keep feeding syrup?

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[Jon]

My colonies are all heavy and don't need feeding. Pollen patties might help build up for the oil seed rape but I doubt if feeding syrup helps unless the colony happens to be very light in the first place.

[Neils]

I've started feeding syrup (a couple of weeks ago) for osr, how long should you keep feeding syrup?

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Until there's enough forage to sustain them basically. You're potentially encouraging them to build up past a point that there is forage available to sustain a colony/colonies of that size.

Check the stores in the hives before adding another feed and feed little and often. There's a school of thought that feeding needs to involve adding gallons of syrup at a time but unless there is good reason such as a big colony with no stores, no forage and/or crap weather incoming, I'm far more inclined to give them a top up (1-1.5 litres of 1:1 on a bursting 14x12) if needed. You ideally need to feed enough to stimulate them to build up without giving them so much that they store the syrup which they'll just move into the supers when you add them.

Before you added syrup, what was the level of stores in the hive, was it all sealed or was there nectar coming in? In the balmy climes of Bristol mine were bringing in nectar & pollen in reasonable quantity for the size of the colonies (3 frames of brood) weekend before last that I didn't bother to feed them but I've no OSR to encourage them to build up for but they seemed to be doing ok here without my help.

[snimmo243]

Before you added syrup, what was the level of stores in the hive, was it all sealed or was there nectar coming in? .

One colony was quite light, having also consumed around 500g of fondant, the other hadn't touched the fondant, I also added nektapol. It's been too cold to look at the frames but both colonies have been bringing in plenty of pollen and are taking down the syrup

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[Jon]

Colonies will usually take syrup or fondant when they are offered it, unless it is really cold, even if the colony is already full of stores.
I would say an offer of pollen is more likely to help the build up but even that will be marginal if there is plenty of pollen locally and the weather is warm enough to fly. I think nektapol has only about 2% pollen though.