Feeding a nucleus hive in summer

I am on 40 acres just outside Canberra. We picked up our bees and brood last weekend. The local beekeeper advised us to sugar feed. He had plastic wheelie bins full of sugar syrup for his multiple hives. I have clumps of tea tree in flower, catoneaster , lavender, and many other flowers around my house. Am I ‘spoon feeding’ ? Can you feed too much so you set up an easy option? After 1 week they have capped 1 frame with honey. We can see bees coming and going and they are also bringing back pollen. Should we stop or reduce feeding?

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Hiya and welcome! All those flowers in bloom have me feeling jealous here in PA, USA😄

If your bees have stopped bothering with the feed and all signs point to a good nectar flow you should stop feeding as it can become a source of food for other critters/mold. Also, your “capped honey” might be made of sugar water instead of nectar if you leave it too long!

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I never feed bees while there’s plenty of forage around. The only time I feed is when a nuc has no honey in the hive at all. When I do, it’s just a few ribbons of honey out of a squeeze bottle along the top bars. That does them until they can start foraging. An easy way is to give them a frame containing some honey.

The one time I did feed bees with a feeder, it triggered them into swarming. That was the first & last time for me, about 25 years ago.

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I’m sure Jeff means this, but for clarification if you feed some honey back to the bees it should be from the same apiary to avoid the risk of disease.
And NEVER ever feed commercial honey. It can contain spores of AFB for example.

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Yes, absolutely Jim. I thought about that during the night. My first job this morning was to edit my post. I wont do that now, it’ll ruin the context of the thread.

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