Kelbee
04-07-2009, 09:56 PM
I’m not sure if this is the right forum for this. I’m also not sure who might be interested in this, but I’m sharing my experience with wintering some hives in a cellar. Warning! This is a long post!
Question: Why did I want to try this?
Several reasons:
1. I have a large unused cellar.
2. In theory, bees don’t produce brood in the prolonged total darkness while in the cellar. 5-6 months without brood should severely weaken varroa mites or eliminate them altogether without using chemicals.
3. In theory, maintaining a steady moderately cold temperature will minimize consumption of honey stores (i.e. more available for harvest). Doolittle describes wintering with only 25 pounds of honey/hive.
I searched, but found minimal modern info on indoor wintering. Some Canadian sources stressed the importance of good ventilation, but didn’t really detail much else. The best reference I found was Doolittle’s “A Year's work in an Out-Apiary” from 100 years ago when cellar wintering was the norm. Although indoor wintering wasn’t really Doolittle’s topic in the book, he gave enough details on how he did it to give me a starting point. His seasons, bloom dates, and winter duration so closely resemble mine that I tried to duplicate his methods as much as possible.
Method:
My cellar is 16x20, and has two 4 inch vents (passive only). Start temperature was 46 degrees and about 2 weeks later dropped to 35-40 degrees for the remainder of the winter. The roof is supported with beams treated with creosote. There is a very faint creosote odor in the cellar.
Hive configuration: Doolittle wintered in single deeps with about 25 pounds of honey/hive. Since I use only medium boxes, I instead wintered with 2 mediums and about 25 pounds of honey/hive. Each hive had a screened bottom board and an Imrie shim on top (mesh screen over hole) to improve ventilation. Newspaper and dry granular sugar were laid over the top bars of the upper box (to absorb moisture and as backup food stores). Hives were placed in 2 stacks of 4 hives/stack, with ¾” shims placed underneath each hive to improve ventiliation.
All hives I believe were “average” strength. By the “eyeballing it” method, none seemed particularly strong, nor particularly weak.
Hives were weighed and placed in the cellar on 11/9/08. They were moved back to their stands and reweighed on 4/5/09 (1st 50 degree day).
Results:
Only 1 of 8 hives survived.
Of the 7 dead hives, 6 had virtually no honey left (i.e. they starved). Some had also consumed the dry sugar, but some had left it untouched. The 7th hive had fair amount of honey left, and it is unclear what killed it. Most hives had no brood. 2 hives had a small 2-3 inch patch of brood on 1-2 frames. Some brood was dry. Some was moist with clear liquid inside. None was foul smelling or diseased appearing (to my untrained eyes). Most dead bees were on the bottom board. There were variable numbers of dead bees still in cluster., mostly dry or slightly moist. One hive had a large cluster which was very moist and had maggots in it ( I didn’t inspect this hive until 2 days after removal from the cellar. I believe flies probably got in during that time and were the source of the maggots.). Again, not foul smelling. I noted variable amounts of white cotton appearing material in all hives. I believe this was mold, but not certain. Or maybe wax moth? Although I didn’t see any wax damage.
The sole surviving hive appears healthy. It had consumed a total of 14 pounds of honey and still had considerable stores left. Although there was a layer of dead bees on the bottom board there was still plenty of bee strength. All in all, it appears very healthy. Bees were eager to get out and about. 2 days out and it’s started a nice sized brood nest. I did note some of that same white cotton like material on frames in the bottom box of this heathly hive also (mold?).
Discussion:
What killed 7 of the 8 hives? The obvious answer in 6 of the 7 was starvation. The 7th hive is unclear. Despite my efforts at ventilation, they still appeared to have some moisture issues. Was the passive ventilation in the cellar not sufficient? Was that very faint creosote smell a factor?
Why did the one hive survive when all others died? Why did it thrive on only 14 pounds of honey while all the others starved on 25 pounds? The survivor hive was on the bottom of its stack. Perhaps the slightly cooler temperature made the difference? Unlikely, I believe. Perhaps greater distance from the creosote spared it? If so, why didn’t the other bottom hive survive? Or perhaps the survivor hive was weaker to start with, so consumed less stores? Again unlikely I believe, but cannot be certain since I only “eyeballed” the strength. Most probably I believe is genetics. 5 of the others were Carni queens purchased from a common source and the other 2 were from swarms of unknown origin. This surviving queen is a Carni from a completely separate source from any of the non-survivors.
Conclusion:
I erred by hanging my hat on Doolittle’s methods without knowing anything about the bees he was working with. He may have gotten by with 25 pounds per hive with his bees, but obviously I need more with mine (all but one anyway). I believe forced air ventilation in the cellar may improve the moisture issues as well as the faint creosote smell issue. Despite my dismal results, I don’t think I’m ready to give up on this. I'm going to try and propagate this survivor queen. I’d be interested in hearing other folks take on this, and perhaps from folks who have some experience in wintering in a cellar.
Question: Why did I want to try this?
Several reasons:
1. I have a large unused cellar.
2. In theory, bees don’t produce brood in the prolonged total darkness while in the cellar. 5-6 months without brood should severely weaken varroa mites or eliminate them altogether without using chemicals.
3. In theory, maintaining a steady moderately cold temperature will minimize consumption of honey stores (i.e. more available for harvest). Doolittle describes wintering with only 25 pounds of honey/hive.
I searched, but found minimal modern info on indoor wintering. Some Canadian sources stressed the importance of good ventilation, but didn’t really detail much else. The best reference I found was Doolittle’s “A Year's work in an Out-Apiary” from 100 years ago when cellar wintering was the norm. Although indoor wintering wasn’t really Doolittle’s topic in the book, he gave enough details on how he did it to give me a starting point. His seasons, bloom dates, and winter duration so closely resemble mine that I tried to duplicate his methods as much as possible.
Method:
My cellar is 16x20, and has two 4 inch vents (passive only). Start temperature was 46 degrees and about 2 weeks later dropped to 35-40 degrees for the remainder of the winter. The roof is supported with beams treated with creosote. There is a very faint creosote odor in the cellar.
Hive configuration: Doolittle wintered in single deeps with about 25 pounds of honey/hive. Since I use only medium boxes, I instead wintered with 2 mediums and about 25 pounds of honey/hive. Each hive had a screened bottom board and an Imrie shim on top (mesh screen over hole) to improve ventilation. Newspaper and dry granular sugar were laid over the top bars of the upper box (to absorb moisture and as backup food stores). Hives were placed in 2 stacks of 4 hives/stack, with ¾” shims placed underneath each hive to improve ventiliation.
All hives I believe were “average” strength. By the “eyeballing it” method, none seemed particularly strong, nor particularly weak.
Hives were weighed and placed in the cellar on 11/9/08. They were moved back to their stands and reweighed on 4/5/09 (1st 50 degree day).
Results:
Only 1 of 8 hives survived.
Of the 7 dead hives, 6 had virtually no honey left (i.e. they starved). Some had also consumed the dry sugar, but some had left it untouched. The 7th hive had fair amount of honey left, and it is unclear what killed it. Most hives had no brood. 2 hives had a small 2-3 inch patch of brood on 1-2 frames. Some brood was dry. Some was moist with clear liquid inside. None was foul smelling or diseased appearing (to my untrained eyes). Most dead bees were on the bottom board. There were variable numbers of dead bees still in cluster., mostly dry or slightly moist. One hive had a large cluster which was very moist and had maggots in it ( I didn’t inspect this hive until 2 days after removal from the cellar. I believe flies probably got in during that time and were the source of the maggots.). Again, not foul smelling. I noted variable amounts of white cotton appearing material in all hives. I believe this was mold, but not certain. Or maybe wax moth? Although I didn’t see any wax damage.
The sole surviving hive appears healthy. It had consumed a total of 14 pounds of honey and still had considerable stores left. Although there was a layer of dead bees on the bottom board there was still plenty of bee strength. All in all, it appears very healthy. Bees were eager to get out and about. 2 days out and it’s started a nice sized brood nest. I did note some of that same white cotton like material on frames in the bottom box of this heathly hive also (mold?).
Discussion:
What killed 7 of the 8 hives? The obvious answer in 6 of the 7 was starvation. The 7th hive is unclear. Despite my efforts at ventilation, they still appeared to have some moisture issues. Was the passive ventilation in the cellar not sufficient? Was that very faint creosote smell a factor?
Why did the one hive survive when all others died? Why did it thrive on only 14 pounds of honey while all the others starved on 25 pounds? The survivor hive was on the bottom of its stack. Perhaps the slightly cooler temperature made the difference? Unlikely, I believe. Perhaps greater distance from the creosote spared it? If so, why didn’t the other bottom hive survive? Or perhaps the survivor hive was weaker to start with, so consumed less stores? Again unlikely I believe, but cannot be certain since I only “eyeballed” the strength. Most probably I believe is genetics. 5 of the others were Carni queens purchased from a common source and the other 2 were from swarms of unknown origin. This surviving queen is a Carni from a completely separate source from any of the non-survivors.
Conclusion:
I erred by hanging my hat on Doolittle’s methods without knowing anything about the bees he was working with. He may have gotten by with 25 pounds per hive with his bees, but obviously I need more with mine (all but one anyway). I believe forced air ventilation in the cellar may improve the moisture issues as well as the faint creosote smell issue. Despite my dismal results, I don’t think I’m ready to give up on this. I'm going to try and propagate this survivor queen. I’d be interested in hearing other folks take on this, and perhaps from folks who have some experience in wintering in a cellar.