What size is YOUR cluster?

[Dave W]

Greetings . . .

Here is a question for those of you w/ screened bottom boards.

I would like to know how much debris you are seeing on your sticky board this time of year.

Please refresh your sticky board and leave in place 7 days. Then describe the size (lenght x width) of the debris field you find.

thanx,
Dave W

[BjornBee]

What size is my cluster? Temperature effects size. Cold temps seem to do something that some call "shrinkage". The cluster will expand again in warmer temps. So while someones cluster may be huge, another could be small. Bees in Texas and bees in maine, even though with the same amount of bees, can display different size clusters depending on the temp. They say everything in Texas is bigger, and for this example that would be true. Keep that in mind when looking at the information.

And a hive that can break cluster during the day, versus one that has not broken cluster will show different results.

[Jim Fischer]

NWCs tend to overwinter in these really scary
little grapefruit-sized clusters that make you
think that your only option is to combine hives.

Don't panic, feed 'em in early spring, and
you end up with hives splitting at the seams.

[Michael Bush]

It is scary the first time. smile.gif

[Toni Bee]

Does NWC mean "New World Carniolan" or some such? Like Michael Bush says, I am scared to death, taking my girls through the winter for the first time. Just got a newsletter from my beekeeping club saying that my clusters should be at least soccer-ball sized, and I am afraid to look!

[ December 13, 2005, 11:07 PM: Message edited by: Toni Bee ]

[Robert Hawkins]

Good guess Toni, New World Carnis are the smallest cluster except maybe AHBs. That's why jim mentioned them. If you're expecting a soccer-ball sized cluster like my italians and you see a softball sized cluster your first instinct is that you don't have enough to overwinter that way. But that's what NWCs do to you. No worries.

Now that you've had this experience you can write an article for your newsletter telling about it and thus relieving the fear from the rest of it's readers. And never bee afraid to look. It's the way we learn.

Hawk

[Rod Weakley]

what size should russian clusters be? The cluster I saw the other day in my russian hive was so small I almost thought the hive was dead, but it's probably still about the size of the NWC that was described above.

[Michael Bush]

Russians also seem to ovewinter in a small cluster.

[Dave W]

Now that WE know bees cluster in many different sizes, guess theres no reason for newbees to check there sticky boards. Just wait til spring and see if they pull through, thats all that matters. Right?

[Jim Fischer]

No, sticky boards CAN tell you quite a bit
in winter. But the size of the debris field
is simply not a good stand-alone metric.

If I see wax capping fragments, I know that
the bees are uncapping stores, which is a good
sign. On the other hand, if I fed my bees in
late summer with HFCS, there may not be so many
cappings to uncap, so this too varies with the
colony.

If I see "junk" in general, I can conclude that
the colony is alive. But if I see LOTS of junk,
I may have a dead colony, and a family of rodents
living in the hive.

Analysis of sticky boards is a lot like reading
tea leaves - people can see in them what they
want to see. Yes, the debris pattern WILL
reflect the cluster size, but unless your
temperature was consistently cold during the
test period, even the size of the debris
pattern will larger than your "cluster size".

If you are worried, heft the colony. Heavy is
good. If it is light, get some fondant in there
pronto. If you can hear the bees, that's a good
sign too. Overwintering is something that will
depend upon what you did in late summer and
fall, and anything done in the cold of December
is most likely a panic reaction to inadequate
fall preparation.

So, to summarize, winter success is a result of
work done in late August through October.
Likewise, spring success is a result of work
done in January through early March.

But if you want to keep bees in the snow,
you can start in January, and build up hives
to the point where you can sell splits in
April.

We pull Apistan just before Thanksgiving, and no
one works between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Come Jan 15th or so, my only "bee suit" comes
out of the closet, currently a "Himalayan" Parka
by North Face, as we do a land-office business
in pollen patties and feed.