If all goes as planned, our two packages of chemical-free bees should arrive today.  Next time, we're going to plan further ahead so we're not putting the finishing touches on our hives the night before!

We've still got one major decision to make, and I'm hoping experienced beekeepers will weigh in.  New package bees have to be fed, and I've got quite a bit of honey leftover from the hives that died of colony collapse disorder last fall.  But I can't decide if it's safe to feed the honey to our new bees.

As a data point, our neighbor's bees have been robbing those hives ever since our original bees died.  I should have just harvested the honey, but it's tough to get honey out of the comb during cold weather, so I only took a bit at a time.  Alternatively I should have blocked off the hives, but I never thought of it except when I saw the bees robbing, and I didn't want to shut the workers in.

80% of my neighbor's bees died over the winter, and without an autopsy, the cause of death is uncertain.  Even if my neighbor's bees died of the same thing as my bees, both apiaries could have come down with the problem independently simply due to living in the same region.  They might have died of different things entirely.  Or my honey might have killed them.

So, my question to you is --- which of the following would you feed new package bees:

• Sugar water just to play it safe (even though it's less nutritious)
• Honey from my dead hives (most of which is crystalized due to being extracted during cold weather)
• Honey-filled comb from my dead hives (which has the benefit of containing pollen, but the disadvantage of being the most likely to carry disease)
  

While you're at it, if you want to tell me your favorite way of feeding bees in Warre and top bar hives, I'd appreciate it.  Thanks for your wisdom!

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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