Question about winterizing a hive. I’m in Ardrossan, Alberta, Canada. For quite a few years I’ve given the bees some frames of honey and then done fall feeding with sugar water. I’ve added sugar cakes over the winter. Some years the hive survived, some years I’ve lost it and those years I’ve kept the leftover capped honey frames. This year I’m wondering, instead of feeding this fall, why wouldn’t I just pack more capped honey frames into the hive to use up my surplus and not feed? Has any one else tried this? I seem to have a surplus of capped honey frames and not enough drawn out frames every year.
Wow, I want your hives! 
The best overwinter feed for a colony is its own honey. So if you have extra full frames of capped honey, by all means give it back to them. I run double deep brood boxes, which is twice what Flow normally sells as brood space. The extra brood box is for all that extra honey during nectar dearths such as winter, or long, hot, dry summers. Your bees will thank you! The only caveat is that if the full frames are from a dead hive, you need to be sure that the colony did not die from some infectious disease such as foul brood or nosema, for example. If it was just cold or varroa, the frames are safe. Good luck!
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I’ve had the same problem of brood feed frames accumulating from winter die off…80% of which are varroa related. This year I wanted to get that plugged equipment back into production so I scraped the honey and pollen off the frames (black plastic) and used those frames in boxes for supering after the first honey pull. I’ve posted here with photos/videos on this subject. The bees really take to building out wax on those used frames.
If you are wintering in single deeps, it would work to put a feed frame on each of the outside positions and top them up with sugar syrup. But in my location (Northern Alberta…Peace River Area), I haven’t had to feed syrup because lately there is plenty of 2nd cut alfalfa around later in the season that tops them up nicely. What I have tried in the past without success is placing a full box of feed on top of that single brood chamber after the last honey removal…just too much of a disruption of the immediate brood area late in the season.
My greatest success has been with strong wintered singles that need feed in March in which case I simply put a full box of feed under the brood area after their cleansing flight. In this case the wintered colony needs to be strong and very well insulated.
Photo of scraped brood frame that has been reconditioned by the bees. I left a strip of original comb for comparison.
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Thanks everyone, much appreciated.
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