Keeping bees

camprn - Are you overwintering those nucs on top of other hives? I got 2 double screened boards, I'm going to overwinter a 1-medium nuc and a 2-medium small hive on top of 2 strong hives.

I haven't seen much in the way of capped honey yet either. Maybe they know fall will be delayed this year?...... I have been feeding some and may need to start supplying syrup again, but I'll give them time to deal with the nectar they have in there first and see how much it looks like there will be.

My hives are getting heavy they just need to start capping. If your hives are light now, start feeding now, 2:1. My feeling is we are going to chill early in autumn and its going to be a long, long cold winter.
I will not be putting the Nucs on top of the other colonies. I hope next year to get some double nuc boxes.

camprn, I'll be interested in how your nucs overwinter all by themselves.

You said last year that it was going to be a bear of a winter and you were right. So you need to start predicting more moderate winters.

I successfully over wintered 2 nucs 2 years ago. I didn't have any nucs last year.

Did inspection yesterday and today.
I've one nuc packed to the gills, bees, honey, nectar and pollen, no new brood and some emerging brood.
The second nuc a fair amount of bees, some emerging brood, no eggs or larvae. A bit of pollen and little nectar. No honey. I started feeding that nuc today.

Hive one, 3 honey supers packed. Took those off. The rest of the hive is a great weight but I didn't inspect the brood chamber or supers I plan on leaving for winter. I put a triangle escape on then replaced the 3 honey supers. There are a lot of bees in this colony. I'll need to make sure there's enough honey.

Hive two has lots of bees and a good weight. There are some incompletely filled frames, saw a bit of eggs, larvae, alerting brood. Good pollen stores. I will feed this colony for a while.

Didn't see any queens or drones. Mite lode acceptable in all hives. Robbing scouts are out in full force so auxiliary entrances were closed but I made sure there was top ventilation and the front entrances reduced. Mouse guards on.
The asters, late golden rod and garden flowers is all the remaining forage..

I looked thru my hives Friday and Saturday. I couldn't believe it, there was no larvae and almost no brood in the hives, except for the nuc that started in August, she's probably trying to catch up. I've been feeding on and off for a few weeks,
)O

camprn wrote:I successfully over wintered 2 nucs 2 years ago.  I didn't have any nucs last year.

I'd be interested in how you did that in the North. I've never tried it in the North, but here in South Carolina, I have overwintered nucs (made up to 10 frames with added frames full of honey) on a screen on top of a good hive - with the entrance of the nuc facing to the back of the hive. They pick up heat from the hive below during cold spells.

Also I have placed two nucs tightly together, with entrances in opposite directions, and continuously fed candy on top of them. I've tried insulating them with a covering of pine straw and some plastic sheeting to keep off the rain, but they still always cluster tightly on the "warm" wall of the nuc.

So, I got 9 medium frames of honey for me! Nice!! About 50 ish pounds. The nuc empty of honey now has 8 frames of honey that needs capping. Nice!! There's 9 frames half full that I am going to leave for the bees to rob way on the other side of the house far away from the apiary.

Pollinator wrote:

camprn wrote:I successfully over wintered 2 nucs 2 years ago.  I didn't have any nucs last year.

I'd be interested in how you did that in the North. I've never tried it in the North, but here in South Carolina, I have overwintered nucs (made up to 10 frames with added frames full of honey) on a screen on top of a good hive - with the entrance of the nuc facing to the back of the hive. They pick up heat from the hive below during cold spells.

Also I have placed two nucs tightly together, with entrances in opposite directions, and continuously fed candy on top of them. I've tried insulating them with a covering of pine straw and some plastic sheeting to keep off the rain, but they still always cluster tightly on the "warm" wall of the nuc.

the nucs were two tier packed with honey and northern raised queen. I had them pushed together and the 15 roofing paper wrap for solar gain. I will do the same this year. I'd really like to get a side by side double nuc going. See Mike Palmer from St Albens Vermont, he does his Nucs that way with independent second stories so he can inspect each colony without disturbing the other. Fingers crossed for overwintering success.

Years ago, before I had a couple of strokes & not a little memory loss,  I read that :-

In Poland it is common for several  fairly large neuc's to housed over winter in the house cellar in a bee proof box ( neuc box in a bee proof box ) that has a 1 & 1/4 internal plastic pipe running  up out the cellar, usually via a substituted window pane made of air gapped plywood .

The outside end of the tubes have a right angle bend and a short section of tube pointing down to keep snow & rain out the neuc's

The hives are fed on syrup that is put in the hives via an umbilical tube that drips very slowly when the lidded jar is inverted . I think they also slip in some pollen & a pollen substitute such as pea flour via a screw topped tube so it lands near the neuc's entrance so the bees can make wax & royal jelly .

It might be worth while doing a lot of research on it if you'd like to over winter bees in the much colder climes.

Interesting, but not feasable for my location.

I was ready to prune the xylosma tree in the front yard, but it's starting to bloom and there were bees. From this Topic and you folks, I realize now that they need all the last minute food to survive the winter.

Nice Sanderson! You can prune when it's done flowering and there will be even more blooms next year. Good choice! And the bees thank you!!

http://www.cuyamaca.edu/oh170/html/Xylosma%20congestum.pdf

Even my husband now realizes that it shouldn't be pruned yet.    In the past, he's always bugged me about pruning "my" ornamental tree or else he would tackle it with the chain saw.  Yikes    So, thanks for the education.

PS I planted the color spot this evening and a bee came to investigate.

Feeding one hive and one nuc. 30# of honey from one of the Italian spring packages.

I've been reading The Times on Sunday this weekend .

There was quite an investigative article about the recovery of the wild and honey bee populations  this last two years .

The Nicotinoid aspect has been dismissed totally for countries that haven't used them  still had massive problems of sudden colony collapse for about four years 2008 to end of 2012.

Germany had  several nature centres we visited giving the good news about a recovery whilst we were over there in July & August this year .
 Has anyone  notice if it has been acknowledged in the USA that this info refutes the green/ anti big Pharma stance over there  ?

Varroa is still a massive problem though.  What steps are you USA keepers taking and why ? What is the purpose of each method seeking to do to interrupt them ?

plantoid wrote:
 Has anyone  notice if it has been acknowledged in the USA that this info refutes the green/ anti big Pharma stance over there  ?

Varroa is still a massive problem though.  What steps are you USA keepers taking and why ? What is the purpose of each method seeking to do to interrupt them ?

It has not. There are some new initiatives.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/20/presidential-memorandum-creating-federal-strategy-promote-health-honey-b

http://beelab.umn.edu/

http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=80-42-05-40


http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/study-strengthens-link-between-neonicotinoids-and-collapse-of-honey-bee-colonies/

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/tech/science/environment/2014/06/18/bumblebee-die-eugene-investigation/10804135/

http://www.xerces.org/neonicotinoids-and-bees/
Varroa is a major problem, no doubt about it. The ideal is to keep mite load at an acceptable threshold as there is no eradicating the mites. I practice IPM including, screened bottom boards, brood breaks and treatment including thymol based Rx. and making sure the bees are as healthy and supported as I can help them to be.

My bees are flying today! Nice!!!

Yea!  That's great, Camp!

Have you seen the GRIT special magazine about bees & beekeeping?  It's been on the news stands down here for about a month now...

AtlantaMarie wrote:Yea!  That's great, Camp!

Have you seen the GRIT special magazine about bees & beekeeping?  It's been on the news stands down here for about a month now...

I have one from last year from GRIT.

Hows everyone's bees doing?  I had a great year attending my local bee club's bee yard.  I learned so much.  Volunteered at the Lithopolis honey festival making bee balloons for kids.    This year I signed up to be a mentor for this years beginner beekeepers. 

My hive became a very mean hive.  Dive bombing at every inspection.  I came close to requeening, but they were just so dang productive.  They were always a few steps ahead of my friends hive.  They ended up filling up a super plus 3 frames in a 2nd super (plus some honey frames in the deeps).  We didnt even get our bees until the middle of May!  I extracted 2 frames and ended up with 2 quarts of honey.  It is delicious!

Nov. 24 I checked my girls and found a large number dead.  It was 50's/ 60's that day so I cleaned off the screened bottom board and this is what it looked like.  I was devastated, but there was still about half alive.  

I went out a couple of weeks ago, and the screened bottom was covered in dead again.  Too cold to clean it out.  I havent seen a dead queen, but there was so many I could have overlooked her.  I wanted to send the dead to the bee lab, but the elements got to them before I did.

The last 50's day we had, there was still some girls alive dragging out the dead.  Im amazed they are still hanging on and hope they make it. 

My friends hive (in my yard) was split during the summer.  He has his hive and a nuc overwintering.  So far they are doing great, but hes going to have to feed them soon.  His hive did not have very much honey stored.  I actually gave him one of my honey frames.

R&R, are those Italian bees? I had the same thing happen when I had Italians. The two hives ended up coming thru the winter but with such small clusters that I combined into one, requeened, and got a new package.

This year I have all Russians and I haven't seen any dead bees. Not that that means they're okay, maybe they're all dead inside the hive instead of out......

Also that year I fed with sugar patties made of sugar & water. I noticed dysentary on the outsides of the hives. This year I fed with sugar patties made of sugar and apple cider vinegar (organic). I haven't seen signs of dysentary. Again, may not mean anything in the long run.

Anxious to see what happens come March or April....

NHGardener wrote:R&R, are those Italian bees? I had the same thing happen when I had Italians. The two hives ended up coming thru the winter but with such small clusters that I combined into one, requeened, and got a new package.

This year I have all Russians and I haven't seen any dead bees. Not that that means they're okay, maybe they're all dead inside the hive instead of out......

Also that year I fed with sugar patties made of sugar & water. I noticed dysentary on the outsides of the hives. This year I fed with sugar patties made of sugar and apple cider vinegar (organic). I haven't seen signs of dysentary. Again, may not mean anything in the long run.

Anxious to see what happens come March or April....

Yep, Italians.  I was going to go ahead and order a package assuming if they do make it their numbers will be so small.  If my queen survives, could I split the package between my hive and starting a new one? 

Ive heard great things about Russian bees.  So do you not have your Italians anymore?

I stopped with the Italians because to me they didn't overwinter as well. However, the Russians I don't think are as productive at making honey, they're more efficient, and seem to store less.

I had thought once about splitting a new package into two hives with 2 queens, but most people say a new hive needs that number of package bees in order to build up the colony. Altho some people seem to have done it, mainly the more experienced beekeepers I think. In the end I didn't do that.

One thing I found out the hard way, altho I already knew this but didn't intervene in time, was that Russians are more likely to swarm in late spring. So my Russian hive swarmed in early June, and left behind several queen cells. I was able to make 3 new hives by taking a frame with a queen cell on it, a few honey and pollen frames, and some brood frames, and start the new splits. So outside of trying to spread one package into 2 hives, you do have the option of starting splits, if you end up with an extra queen.

Maybe your hives will recover. Ordering a package is good insurance though.  If you end up with a small cluster of bees with a queen, you can always try working it as a split, see if there's any brood, or if you have another hive to borrow brood from, or your new package gets productive and you can borrow a frame of brood from there, that could be a start of a new hive. If your hives die or almost die out, you probably have honey frames leftover to put into a new split.

Did you treat for mites? Because I didn't treat for mites, and I have a feeling that may be why I ended up with piles of dead bees. Last summer I think starting new splits broke the brood cycles and kept the mite counts down. Altho like I said, we'll see how many of my hives actually come out of winter. Tonight it's supposed to be -9F. I can't believe anything can live thru -9F, but hopefully they will.

No, didnt treat for mites.  I never saw any, but did have hive beetles.  I smashed hive beetles when I saw them but felt my hive was strong & feisty enough to take care of them.

I kind of wonder if they died from not enough ventilation.  They were propolis crazy.  Every time I got into my hive, my frames were glued together so tight with propolis and I did weekly inspections.  I have since added paint sticks under my outer cover to add a chimney effect for more ventilation.  

I wanted to insulate my hive with foam insulation on the outside, but never got a chance to grab it.  I hope they can stand the cold, its in the negatives here too tonight.