Feeding

I've been getting a lot of conflicting advice about feeding the bees at this time in the fall. It's late fall, frost has killed off most of the flowering, so the bees don't really have that much nectar to go after.... so feeding them sugar syrup seems to be what a lot of people do, and a lot of people vehemently say not to do it, as it'll encourage robbing from other hives, wasps, bees, and the like. I was expecting that an internal feeder wouldn't have so much trouble.

So I put it on yesterday, and put in a quart of 2:1 sugar syrup, and today, I saw tiny little wild bees trying to get into the entrance, and a bunch of bees just hanging out on the back of the hive, where there was a small crack between the bottom of the feeder and the top brood box. Bah. They were buzzing around, and there was some wrestling, as I think some wasps might have been trying to get in there, but... I'm not sure. It seemed like there were bees grabbing and hurtling smaller bees out of the front entrance, but I'm not sure if they were small wasps or bees.

Still, the hive seems to be defending itself vigorously.... but I do wonder if the syrup was an unnecessary attraction, still... the bees were covering the syrup and seemed to be using it to good effect. So, it seems to be coming out all right. We'll see.