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Are you ready for the Odfrank overwintering challenge?

123K views 416 replies 68 participants last post by  BayHighlandBees 
#1 ·
We've had to listen to Jolly Ollie brag all year about all the swarms he's caught so let's see how well he does at keeping them alive all winter.

We'll go by number of hives lost beginning October 1, 2012 thru March 1, 2013. Check in with the number of hives you have as of October 1st. if you want to participate so get done with all your combines and such before then.

Ollie may be old, bald and cheap but he's as honest as they come so we'll go by the honor system like we did the swarm challenge. Last I heard, Ollie had 60 hives. Is that right Ollie?
 
#167 ·
Sorry to hear about your lostes ladies & gentlemen::),, Look forward to reading the further diagnose of destruction/death of your ladies. As you know pictures are a bonus! Here in CO, we had our first major cold snap/moisture in about 5 weeks. I look forward to see who's flying in the next two days. High temps forecasted for 53. All 15 hives alive as of 12/8/12
 
#168 ·
I think we're going to get some interesting information after the challenge is over. I'm already seeing in my hives that the ones that had a brood break over the summer and re-queened are doing as well or better than the ones I used MAQS on. The remaining two year hives treated with powdered sugar only are the ones in trouble or have had to combine, (3 so far).
 
#169 ·
Charlie, I was pondering this. Have you considered trying a MDA Splitter manipulation and thus guarantee a brood break? If you have drones you could even do it now.
In the bitterly cold north a brood break is ensured, whereas in paradise I am led to believe there is never one. Mel says: that a beekeeper only needs to ensure peak populations when he has peak nectar flows; that the large colonies that beekeepers have traditionally aimed for year round are more beneficial to mite production than colony survival; Also that africanized bees survive and thrive despite mites because of the brood break and the smaller colony size.
MP and many others are noticing that nucs survive untreated whilst large colonies need to be treated. Year 2 I had 5 out of 8 colonies survive and those survivors had all undergone a brood break (split or swarm) in addition to our winter brood break.
Perhaps you could get together with OD, as the only downside I have seen with an MDA splitter intervention is that it works best with large supplies of empty drawn comb. Rumor has it he has some. :eek:
 
#170 ·
Charlie, I agree. I am curious to see true info on what hives make it and what hives dont and wether or not they were splits, no treatment, treatment, heavy on stores, light on stores, queen age (if known), or if they were in nucs or other types of hive equipment.

My four hives made it last winter and they consisted of 2 deep hives that took frames from to start a couple of five frame nucs. The nucs built up strong this past spring and both big hives made it through just fine as well until one became a drone layer.

Im gonna do some late summer nucs next year and either let them raise their own queens or stick queen cells into them, and then see how things turn out in the spring of 2014.

Im really curious how my swarm hives will winter this year, if they make it I am going to split the heck out of them and graft some queen cells to see if I can keep them alive!!
 
#174 ·
Adrian,

I've watched Mel's video that was floating around this site and it make allot of sense. I think it's a more natural way of combating mites in addition to culling drone comb and as I can see in my own hives, it works. I'm small with 35 hives, well, 32 now so I have the time to do the manipulation.

It's such a temperate climate here that I still have hives with 4 boxes on and now the Eucalyptus is starting to flow so I'll be adding supers soon. The problem for me here in SF is the foggy windy weather is almost a death sentence to a virgin queen trying to mate. They almost never mate or mate properly.

Like BG, I'm going to raise my own queens next year in one of my warmer less windy beeyards in San Jose and see how that goes.

As far as combining weak hives, If I don't see any signs of disease, I'll add a weak hive to a strong one. The times I've combined two weak hives, it's almost never worked out so I stopped doing it.
 
#176 ·
Charlie, the reason I ask about combining hives is that I'm starting to question its effectiveness related to overwintering. My logic is that if one of the parts of the combine is weak, and that is generally the reason for a combine, even if it is disease free it likely has a number of mites that the receiving colony can do without; In other words the harm to the receiving colony in accepting mite-ridden bees is greater than the good generated by the extra bee numbers. This might be especially true in an area where brood rearing never really shuts down. The receiving colony may have achieved a balance of sorts with its mite population which is thrown off when the mitey bees come in. Are colony combiners selecting for virulent mites that overpower colonies? Sorry for the early morning caffeine ramblings.
 
#178 · (Edited)
I think you're right Adrian since the "weak" hive is most likely weak because of excessive mite load. I can see where this would apply to splits as well. It's not wise to split a hive or to make up nucs with mite infested brood and bees.

I've also noticed that colonies from cutouts that have been established for a while don't do as well as swarm clusters hanging from a tree. This maybe because I rubberband the cut out brood full of mites into frames to get the cutout established in a hive box.
 
#179 ·
I can second Charlie's observation regarding a few weeks of no brood in late to mid summer.
I have few hives that were brood-less in mid to late summer. All these hives doing very very well, now.
I also treated several hives in September with MAQS and these hive are doing fine, too.

One of this not treated hives was a cut out. I killed the queen by accident when I did the cut out and the bees made
a new one, she is performing nicely, now.


I think splitting hives in August after you pulled the honey could be a good idea in regard of reducing the mites.

I might lost one hive of my 14 hives but I am not 100% sure because I have not looked into this hive lately.
I still saw some traffic but this traffic could be robbers too.
I hope I get nice warm day soon to verify whether this hive on the living side.

Cheers
Stefan
 
#180 ·
Charlie, actually I think splitting a mite-laden hive is the right thing to do if you are able to do it, and ensure that there is a period of broodlessness. Some of this runs counter to common teaching. Traditional methods advocate placing a caged queen with a split, and makes no mention of ensuring a period of broodlessness. In Mel's method a hive is made queenless and left as a whole until just before queen cell emergence - it is then that the splits are made. The period of broodlessness that ensues ensures a mite setback.
If a beekeeper is making splits when queens are not going to get mated, alternative methods of ensuring a period of broodlessness take place need to be arranged. A variant of Roland's "above the excluder" method can be used. In a two deep hive shake all the bees off sealed, or nearly sealed, frames of brood. Place these frames in one of the deeps and place the excluder in between the two boxes. Leave it for a week. After a week, take the frames and adhering bees away to a new location, in the apiary or elsewhere. Add a caged queen. Leave her caged for at least three days, and than allow the bees to release her or release her yourself. This will ensure a period of broodlessness.
 
#181 · (Edited)
Adrian,
Something is missing in the math or the details for me. Most likely the details.

Day 1 fraems are isolated from any further laying. any one day old egg is 21 days from emergence. 10 days until a queen is reintroduced 7 days above excluder plus 3 days queen is caged. If the queen begins to lay immediately it will be an additional 8 days until that brood is capped. total of 19 days from isolation to new brood being capped. Capped brood has been present in the box at all times.

Mainly I am not seeing how the set back for the mite is working. Is the reduced capped brood the hive enough to effect this set back? Or ?????
 
#183 ·
Thanks Adrian, This is my first year wintering bees and I am on pins and needles about my choice of mite control. In researching it there are many methods. none seem to be reliable at least not always. I chose one. wish I had with a shotgun approach.
 
#184 ·
Well, I lost 50% of my hives this week. 1 of my 2 hives died out from Varroa and Deformed Wing Virus so I lost half of my yard. Hive #1 was from a package which grew into a two deep box brood power hive. Hive #2 was a late caught outdoor colony in a meduim brood box which seems to be holding their own. Sad to lose what was such a fabulouse hive, my first, but I'll soldier on and look forward to new bees in the Spring. Small loss to others but half my bees to me.
 
#186 ·
Hi Rod, et al,
I just checked all my hives today. When I removed the inner covers all the top bars were FULL of bees. Didn't want to disturb them further to check on stores. For some insurance I placed 8 to 12 lb. sugar cakes on them all. I also added 1/4lb pollen patty. We got lots of winter left so anything can happen by March1. But my hives seen ready. All hives are treatment free, small cell or foundationless, triple 8 frame mediums.
 
#187 · (Edited)
I lost one of 17 hives so far. It was a really weak nuc/colony that I believe I used too much from too late to strenthen other colonies. I think they perished during Hurricane Sandy.

I also have 4 other nucs that are very small and I expect to lose. It looks like they have 1-1/2 to 2 frames of bees. We'll see.

The other 5 nucs and 7 colonies still look real strong.

I expanded from 3 colonies to 17 last year. If I wind up with 12 come Springtime I'll consider that a success and a lesson learned about how and when to split.

I treated with mineral oil/apple cider vinegar in SHB traps.
 
#189 ·
KQ, it is a managable problem. Just completed my second year and I saw more beetles this year. It was a hot, dry summer and maybe that had something to do with it. I did a cut-out last March and that hive was full of beetles but the bees kept them coralled (sp) in the corners.

Last year I used the traps and it wasn't an issue.
This year I didn't use them and wound up with alot more beetles.

The beetle traps seem to manage the problem but other factors may be at work here.
 
#190 ·
Well we got are first bad weather of the year here in the N.EAST we had high winds and cold temps. and a little snow all my hives did well all humming away i even seen a bee or two flying in and out real qwick can't wait till spring.


 
#192 · (Edited)
No surprises for me yet. Lost a few smaller nucs that never seemed to do much, a few large hives I waited too long to treat for mites and they crashed. But do you know what happens when you have a lot of hives? You almost like a few losses so you can take all those drawn and filled frames and distribute them to the other robust hives, or have a reserve for springtime feeding,growth, checkerboarding, etc.

Over all, all the other hives look great.

Seems I can't video and talk at the same time-sorry:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-KOFdzQM1k&feature=youtu.be

Here is a triple divided deep hive with two Northern locally mated Glenn daughters.


Although this hive was fed some syrup this fall and was very heavy in weight, I put sugar bricks on all my hives ..some just for insurance. Many hives have had a large population of bees for a long time. They Still looks great. I gave all my hives a single Hop Guard mite treatment in late Sept/early October. Some probably could have used another treatment due to continued broodnest activities, but I lost my chance when the weather got cold.
Heres an average triple nuc:


Photos are taken at 42 degrees. None of the hives are light, in fact many will have to be adjusted this spring to aviod the queen being honeybound. That's a lot of bees on the top though.

Here's how I winterized them:


Only wraped on three sides. The front is facing south and uninsulated for solar gain.




Here is what I call my Franken hive.(When I assembled it it was a monster) Only the Two bottom deeps are made out of 1 1/2" car decking. Interesting, out of about 75 standard hives, this is the only one with bee activity at the top and bottom entrances @ 42 degrees.




I had bees in this all summer, and surprisingly, it wasn't hard to manage. It's the filled frames that makes it heavy, not the additional wood. Look closley, the honey supers are standard 3/4" thick pine. Just firred out with a 1x2 to fit the larger exterior size of the bottom deeps.
Don't you wish your bees were in this thick hive right about now? :)
Heres how it's made. The top and bottom entrances are reduced for winter. Screened bottom has slide in and top screened inner cover has 2" foam insulation



Heres where I keep the bees. Our 80 yard archery range. Hives and targets all along the edge.
 
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