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Warm Winter... Good or Bad?

12K views 77 replies 36 participants last post by  Ravenseye 
#1 ·
I can't figure this out. The temperatures here in PA have been unseasonably warm. Is this going to make it easier for my hive to overwinter (because they use less energy trying to stay warm and can take cleaning flights), or will it be more difficult (bees being more active in warm temps and consuming stores more quickly.)

I know the weather has ruined the famous Pennsylvania "ice wine" crop....
 
#27 ·
Does anyone in this Forum NOT feed their bees?

But if you do feed sugar water this time of year, what is the proper ratio? I'd think you'd want to use 2:1 to minimize the bees' labor evaporating the stuff?

[ January 02, 2007, 10:17 AM: Message edited by: Hobie ]
 
#28 ·
Hobie -

I don't feed my hobby bees. I used to. Then I quit. If I felt that one of my colonies wouldn't survive without some feeding, I would give them some sugar syrup.

For the most part, beekeepers feed their bees because they (the 'keepers) take too much honey for the bees to overwinter on what they have left. Honey is more valuable than sugar syrup; economically, beekeepers profit by taking the expensive honey and replacing it with less expensive sugar syrup. Since I don't sell much if any honey, I just take what I feel the bees can afford to lose.

I tend to leave more honey on the hives than many of the others responding here. I like to leave 90 to 100 pounds of honey on each hive for overwintering. If the bees don't use it, I can always take it in the spring.

The bees here seem to use less honey over "mild" winters than over "cold" winters. Of course, even our "mild" winters rarely get warm enough for the bees to break cluster. This winter, so far, has been mild, but high temperatures still rarely break freezing.
 
#29 ·
Every year is different and I believe that management this time of year needs to be adjusted to the changes. We are also having exceptionally warm weather this year and I take advantage of the warm days to move the honey stores closer to the cluster, putting empty comb above and to the outside. I believe this reduces the likeyhood that when we get the late Jan and Feb cold they will have to break cluster to get to food. I have feeders in all my hives but the bees are not very interested in the feed so I think they are getting a little bit of feed outside.
 
#30 ·
I feed very little. Usually only packages or nucs I am trying to build up. My friend Bob says I don't feed enough. But I prefer to leave more honey on the hive than he does. I figure it is a better feed for them. ALthough honey is more expensive than syrup, if you figure your labor and everything I am not so sure. And I am not convinced that syrup is just as good for the bees as their own honey. Sorry if this is not PC.

I did use pollen patties last year and it did seem to be of value. I plan to do that again this year.
 
#31 ·
I've been away for a while. Nice to see that you're all still here.

I think this question depends on what you mean by warm. Up here, we've been having a very warm winter. Today, it was in the upper thirties. That's very warm by local standards, but that doesn't mean the bees are especially active. In my climate, I expect the bees are using less feed than normal.

We'll see if they need a lot of feed for brood rearing when spring comes.

In other parts of the country, a warm winter may mean something very different.
 
#33 ·
<Does anyone in this Forum NOT feed their bees?>

I don't feed, but like others I leave a lot of honey on in the fall. Is there a difference in feeding practices between those who manage for honey and those who don't need to harvest much honey?
 
#34 ·
Compairing a warm vs cold winter losses, I always vote on warm winters causing more losses than cold.
Short warm snapps arnt going to change much, but its the prolonged mid winter into early spring mild breaks, that catch the colonies off guard when a cold late winter cold snap sets in. The hives will have all the feed they need, but just cant access it due to tight clustering around brood.
One of the two things I find that helps manage this situation is winter packing, well its the reason why I pack. It allows a looser cluster, and better access of stores.
The other is indoor wintering,
 
#35 ·
However BjornBee banned me to use spring or autumn words, this is free web and I use.

Our bee winter start in September and stops at the end of April. During this time they use winter sugar and it is enough. I do not worry.

Warm winter is very relative issue on globe.

Oct to Nov there is no snow but bees cannot fly out
Dec to March snow covers ground.
April and there is no pollen outside.

Our autumn and spring is like winter in Texas or southern countries. That is why I speak about our spring. Dandelion blooms in Texas in January. We have dandelion at the beginning of June.

I have seen in forums that southern area beekeepers have problems whic does not exist in north like in England of Finland. Still they do not want to listen how to play with winter food.

Some do not feed, some feed all the time ...

.
 
#36 ·
.
Ian says that warm winter cause losses. My experience is same if we speak about the wet snow 3 feets or so. When bees are inside wet snow, they get more nosema than in dry cold weather. But if snow is one feet and hives get free air, they survive splended.
 
#37 ·
"Warm" winter here is 40-50 F during the day and rarely getting below freezing at night. I worry about the plants that have to chill to germinate. Typically at this time of year we have a foot or so of snow, temperatures around 10-20F and my driveway is a veritable glacier. Despite the fact that I have not been getting my daily adrenaline rush from careening down the driveway (with a steep drop-off on the right), I'm not complaining.

It's good to hear that you do not "have" to feed. My intention was to take only minimal honey and let the bees manage on their own. I left as much honey as I could, and uncapped extra frames for them to take back to their stores. I tried to heft the hive last night (3 deeps), and could not budge it, but I'm not Charles Atlas.
 
#38 ·
The El Nino effect seems to be the prime mover
behind the warmer temps in the East.

Right up the east coast, we have temps that
are 15 to 20 degrees above "normal" for this
time of year, with some impressive daytime
highs. This is NOT global warming-related,
we had the same deal 3 or 4 winters ago.

Not to worry... cold weather will arrive,
but by then, the bees may have eaten a large
fraction of their winter stores in all the
"useless" activity during the warm spell.
 
#40 ·
This happened a few years ago, warm weather going into winter and bee's are foraging, raising brood, eating up their store's etc... then when the cold hits and stays a little longer than normal there will be a lot of losed hive's from starvation and a lot of new beekeepers will be scratching there heads wondering why they lose their hives. when weather gets like this I feed, have feeders on hives plus open feeders just to help keep the stores up in case when winter hits and stays longer than normal my bee's will have a better chance... I took most of their honey this year then had a very poor fall flow, guest that's how it works at times, just my 2 cents......

[ January 03, 2007, 03:22 PM: Message edited by: TwT ]
 
#41 ·
Finman, you must not get cold winter snaps as we do here in Northern North America. Here the winter patterns can and do change 20or 40 degreeC overnight at times. Sudden drop in temp, and prolong cold is what I am reffering to.( two years ago we had -30 below for three to four weeks straight, hitting -40C for three day time highs!!)
Its not a matter of snow cover or hive prep at that point. Then it all comes down to hive health and vigour that determines the survival of the hives
 
#43 ·
"The El Nino effect seems to be the prime mover
behind the warmer temps in the East.

Right up the east coast, we have temps that
are 15 to 20 degrees above "normal" for this
time of year, with some impressive daytime
highs. This is NOT global warming-related,
we had the same deal 3 or 4 winters ago."

Don't forget the North Atlantic Oscillation that seems to be having some effect.
 
#47 ·
>> Jim said: This is NOT global warming-related

> Gee, thanks Jim! I suppose you have scientific
> evidence for that statement.

Uh, yeah.

The delta is simply too big to be a short-term
result of global warming, and the impact on the
weather is very similar the last few El Nino
events.
 
#48 ·
Weather and global warming are the result of a complex system, not a linear one. Much as bees are part of a complex system. Human predisposition is to treat all systems as linear when they are not.
With a complex system you can get one result on one day, but the identical interaction the next day may yield a different result. I suspect how the bees react to various weather patterns will never be the same twice because there are factors involved we are not aware of and probably will never be.
Profound, huh?
 
#49 ·
It got to 64 degrees here today. The girls were all over the front of both hives, almost bearding, like when it's hot out (it is humid out there). I've got a winter hazel that's going to break open soon, too bad, it's my favorite bloom in the spring and we're supposed to get cold this coming week. I don't think this weather is at all good for either the bees or the garden.
 
#50 ·
The delta is simply too big to be a short-term
result of global warming
Global warming related or not, the north circumpolar vortex is contracting. The warm/cold boundry is moving northward, resulting in a situation where I don't have to pull snow off my roof so much anymore. With less snow going down my neck and causing a huge temperature delta on that sensetive skin, I'm happy.

My bees are also happy. They've been able to get out now and then for a cleansing flight. It's kind of like living a few hundred miles farther south.
 
#51 ·
Weather and climate are chaotic systems which by their very nature are sensitive to initial conditions. Another way to say it is that small variations in an initial set of conditions in a system can result in large variations in that system over time. It's what makes the weather so hard to predict. The earth's atmosphere and hence our weather is a non-linear dynamic system. Good luck predicting it.

To say that what we're seeing this winter is "too large" an effect to be attributable to the "small changes" possibly due to global warming is in my opinion, ignoring the reality of the situation- and the impact that even small man-made changes in the earth's atmosphere can have on our weather and climate.
 
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