Now in October, and hope your bees, if you have them, are well and producing good brood to get them through winter. Supers are off and bees are going crazy, attacking hummingbird feeders and anything smacking of sweetness. We've had a lot of rain this fall and that has made it difficult for bees to gather nectar for their winter stores. Rain washes the nectar out of what blossoms we have remaining and bees just won't fly in the rain.
So this means you probably need to be feeding them if you haven't already begun. How to tell if a colony needs to be fed? Lift the back of the hive. With experience, you can tell from that if your hive is heavy enough for winter. I also use a hand-held luggage scale that has a hook I attach a strap to and put the strap under the back side and lift. Lifting half the weight, I want to see at least 50 pounds on the scale which is 100 pounds minimum for the colony.
Below is a link to a decent video from southern Canada that talks about methods of feeding syrup. In the fall, we use a 1 part water to 2 parts sugar (by volume) as syrup.
Look here in the near future for more suggestions about winter prep.
********** Video link ********
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