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RE: Bees are having a blast ..... i don't know if there hungry or the grapes are that dam good.
Bees get a bad rap with grape farmers. Bees will not split a grape open to get the sweet juice, but if there is nothing else around they will work grapes already split by other insects. If they are working grapes that tells me you are in a dearth though. You might check your hives to make sure they have plenty of stores and open nectar in the comb, If not you might consider giving them a little feed.
you are right, bird's are to blame...
They are somewhat hungry ,
I don't use sugered water to feed the bees but i think I'm coming to that...any advice.
I fed my first packages until they had had 2 brood boxes full of comb and it was time to put supers on. Since then I hadn't really fed but once or twice in extreme emergencies. Last few yrs I hadn't fed sugar at all I simply left some honey in big hives to give to new hives and splits. Well the bees taught me something new last yr. They taught me that they have been localized to the point that they no longer brood up in a dearth like commercial italians will, even if they have capped stores. Nothing coming in equals no new bees. That's great in the summer time as the brood break helps with the mites, but last september when our golden rod should have started and they should have been brooding up to make young fat winter bees they didn't and i ended up losing 14 colonies this last winter because they simply didn't build up enough numbers. So now I have decided that sugar is cheap insurance and if they need it, they need it. I still wont be one of those guys that robs every ounce of honey to sell for $8/lb and replace it with %0.10/lb sugar.
I think I'm being lazy by not developing a plan or a schedule as when to harvest & when to feed . Every thing needs some practice and experience to be tuned .... definitely will consider if they really need food.
a plan is good, sticking to a plan no matter what is bad. it's about like playing chess, you gotta know what your next 12 moves are before they happen so when something changes, you have time to react.