Important: Feed Your Package Bees

New beekeepers: if you are picking up package bees very soon, make sure you feed them and continue to feed them until there is clearly a strong nectar flow.  Remember, these bees have no stored food from last year. The only food available is what you feed them and the forage from the notoriously unreliable spring nectar flow in the Willamette Valley and other parts of the Northwest.  It is best to feed them sugar syrup and some pollen substitute.  The substitute comes in powder form or as a patty.