Assessing food reserves
Assessing food reserves is crucial in deciding whether and when to intervene with extra feeding, both in winter and in other seasons when foraging activity is impeded by bad weather or drought.
Honey reserves should be assessed by checking each frame one by one. Both the presence of capped honey and fresh, non-capped honey must be checked. The honey reserve is sufficient if one or both outer frames are full of honey and there is honey on the rim and upper corners of the central brood frames.
It is important to assess also the pollen reserves, which are usually found next to the first brood frames. A pollen reserve is considered ‘good’ if at least two honeycomb half-faces are full of cells with pollen.
Honey reserves (and possibly also candy in winter) can be assessed remotely with the use of electronic scales. The weight of the honey stored in the hive should be assessed, considering that a full nest box is about 2-2.5 kg. The weight of the hive should be evaluated and checked for variations using the scale application on a PC or mobile phone.
Warnings: May depend on the regulations in force in the given country.
Please check out the B-THENET Platform for the Best Beekeeping Practices tailored to each country, co-developed with practicing beekeepers in the National B-THENET Centres of those countries (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden).
BEST PRACTICES AND INNOVATIONS FOR A SUSTAINABLE BEEKEEPING
Ongoing | 2022-2026
- Main funding source
- Horizon Europe (EU Research and Innovation Programme)
- Geographical location
- Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden