Bee Tea & the Venting Issue

Are the bees going for the Bee/Tea syrup?  Well, I don't know yet, but don't take that the wrong way.  Typically the maples break the pollen & nectar fast for the bees.  At the same time we beeks like to start feeding the bees 1:1 sugar syrup.  It supplements their diet and helps them brood up in early Spring.  Which I have done.  The bees however aren't bothering with the syrup very much.  It has been on them for nine days and they have only taken half of it, maybe.  

It seems right now the Maple flow is amazing.  The mature trees are blooming on consecutive days instead of all at once.  This gives the bees a prolonged flow & pollen source.  The trees that bloomed first have been picked dry and are now closer to seed growth.  While more large trees are breaking bloom each day or so.

Might the Tea be another bad idea.  I had thawed a bunch of full honey frames for the last inspection; in case the bees needed a resupply of honey.  Once they thawed out the tray they were on and the deep they were in  became covered in dripping honey.  Today was warm so i put the tray outside for the bees to clean off.  In fact i placed it between the two hives to guarantee they would find it.  Well, this is what that tray looked like six hours later...

Empty Buffet Line !?

Where are the bees?  Not on the free honey!  In fact we found them on a large Red Maple that had bloomed this morning.  My neighbor & I stood beneath her tree and could hear the actual buzzing of the bees; all four hives worth.  Remember she has two as well.  I remembered that bees will locate a major source and stay with it while skipping other minor sources.  Also that bees prefer Nectar to Honey. 

So I can't tell if the bees like the Tea.  They're taking it slowly which is more than what they are doing to the free honey.  Does that count?  When I open fed them the Tea before the bloom started they were all over it.  That's all I know for now.

They're always on it but not many

 I did finally find a way to clean up the spilled honey on the tray and on the deep those frames were in.  I'm glad it wasn't wasted...

Look who came to help

☼   ☼   ☼

The Ventilation issue still confuses me.  The hive, Myrina, has never had a moisture problem.  Yet, here she is with water practically running off the t-cover.  What i did was add Another Vent Box atop the one she already had.  It looks like this.

Note how much Tea/syrup is still left

The added VB is a Summer version with nine holes.  I changed to VB's with fewer holes last year going into Winter, hence the one with only three.  This did clear up the condensation problem.  I still don't know why it happened.  What I do know:

1. The cluster is directly beneath the HTF
2. The t-cover is new to the hive but used and a year old
3. The Tea/Syrup seems to have a thinner consistency than syrup
4. The other hive has the same setup but no problem

If this continues again in the Fall I will be upset.  I thought I had the Ventilation problem licked but apparently not.  More reading!

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