🍯 Autumn Feeding and Winter Stores Lab

About this simulation

UK colonies need roughly 18–23kg of capped stores to survive winter without starving before spring forage returns. Once the ambient temperature drops and the bees cluster, they can no longer take down syrup efficiently — so there is a hard deadline: feeding has to finish before the first sustained cold snap, not after it. This lab shows a hive cutaway where the frames fill with capped stores as heavy syrup is fed and converted, racing against a closing autumn window.

How it works

• Heavy syrup rate — litres of 2:1 syrup offered per week; bees convert it into stores at a limited daily rate.
• Colony strength — a bigger cluster processes syrup faster but also eats more of its own stores just to stay warm.
• Days until first frost — the feeding window. Once it closes, the bees cluster and stop taking syrup down — whatever is capped is what they'll have all winter.
• Syrup concentration — heavy 2:1 syrup needs less evaporation and builds stores faster than light 1:1, which is really a spring/summer feed.

Reading the scene

• Frames fill from empty (dark comb) to capped gold cells as stores accumulate.
• The feeder above the hive drips faster with a higher syrup rate.
• The sky cools and leaves fall faster as the frost deadline approaches.
• The season loops automatically — watch the outlook readout to see whether stores reach target before the window shuts.

Did you know?

Feeding too late is one of the most common autumn mistakes: below about 14°C bees form a tighter cluster and largely stop moving syrup from feeder to comb, so a colony can look "fed" on paper while actually going into winter under-stocked.