Temperature Limitations of Canada...

[JeffJones]

Hi all, just interested in your comments on the following:

Despite my better judgement, I hived my two (New Zealand) packages late in the morning today when the temperature was only +5 Celsius. Was this a bad idea? (it seemed to work OK)

On an unrelated note, I have personally observed my bees flying in the winter at colder than -20 Celsius. Not just one or two, but a fair number of them. I don't know what to make of this, as I haven't been keeping bees long, but I do know the books say it needs to get to +14 C ... what was going on?

Thanks

Jeff

[honeyshack]

hello from across the lakes
i would make sure you hives are well sheltered especially on a day like today. Make sure you have feed on them with Fumigillan if you are going that route, as well, if you are going to use oxytetracyclene, to start that as well.
Entrance reducer to the 1-1.5 inch opening on a day like today is a good idea.
You want to keep them warm so the brood does not chill...sun and no wind.
I am trying to think of what else my husband did when he first started our hives, I think he took a piece of insulation and put it into two garbage bags end for end, taped together and then used some old plastic twine to wrap around the one hive body. This way they could keep there heat.

Oh yeah if you have no willows or dandilions like us (too cold) get some pollen substitute from bee maid. This encourages the brood rearing.

[Michael Bush]

I'd keep some syrup on them and warm up the syrup from time to time. They have no stores and can quickly starve.

[Ian]

>>Was this a bad idea? (it seemed to work OK)

Nope, just about the perfect day to do it. Cooler weather prevents bad drifting you sometimes get when hiving packages, its the reason why I do it in the evenings.

Ya, get some feed on them if they are on fresh comb, otherwise, they should be fine!

[JeffJones]

>I'd keep some syrup on them and warm up the syrup from time to time. They have no stores and can quickly starve.<

Actually they do have stores -- I hived them on drawn comb with sugar syrup/honey and some pollen.

>Make sure you have feed on them with Fumigillan if you are going that route, as well, if you are going to use oxytetracyclene, to start that as well.<

Nope, not going that route!! I have vowed never to do this unless a clear need arises. I don't want to start building up immunities (to medicine) or making the bees dependent on anybody's product (except Roger's Sugar of course )

>Nope, just about the perfect day to do it. Cooler weather prevents bad drifting you sometimes get when hiving packages, its the reason why I do it in the evenings.<

I had suspected this... but I wanted some expert opinions and that's why I came here...

Thanks everybody. Still curious to know what you think about bees flying in winter at -25...?

[France]

Jeff, perhaps you will have to ask them again? They seem to be smartly avoiding your question?
I'm itching to read their responses though. . . .

Regards,
France

>Thanks everybody. Still curious to know what you think about bees flying in winter at -25...?

[Michael Bush]

>Actually they do have stores -- I hived them on drawn comb with sugar syrup/honey and some pollen.

Then they are all set.

>I have personally observed my bees flying in the winter at colder than -20 Celsius. Not just one or two, but a fair number of them. I don't know what to make of this, as I haven't been keeping bees long, but I do know the books say it needs to get to +14 C ... what was going on?

But they aren't going far. They are just doing cleansing flights and heading right back and I'll bet it's a sunny day AND I'll bet some of them don't make it back.

[JeffJones]

>But they aren't going far. They are just doing cleansing flights and heading right back and I'll bet it's a sunny day AND I'll bet some of them don't make it back.

Yessir, right on all counts. But I'd hoped you were going to say something more like, "Wow you must have some kind of incredible survivor stock and how soon can I buy some queens from you?" Well just kidding about the queens bit, but you get the idea ... actually the ones that were flying at that temperature were feral bees that I caught last year. I have no idea what race they are, although I have just a tickling, teasing suspicion they're italian.

[Ian]

>>Thanks everybody. Still curious to know what you think about bees flying in winter at -25...?


The only hives I see at -25 are hives that are dieing off, it seems to be a symtom related to t mites.

During warmer periods of winter, when the bees can break cluster, but still too cold to fly, I figure its older bees flying off to die. Just as they do any other time of year, die away from the colony. I winter inside some of my operation, in complete darkness, and they will do exactly the same throughout the winter. I can tell when the summer bees die off, with the huge amount of bees dead on the floor by Dec, and then the die off is light, up till March, I start seeing more bees on the floor.

thats my opinion and I am sticking to it. I still have not seen anyone studdy this, I think it is just generally accepted.

>>They seem to be smartly avoiding your question?

Is that the response you were looking for France? Or has all your years of experience lead you to believe some other thoery. Remember, there is a difference between theory and fact. You need studdy to prove facts. Theory is mearly our obsevation and iterptation of whats happening, nothing wrong with that.

[France]

A bit of a hit and miss..?
I don't really care one way or the other - but the important factor here was missed - intentionally or not...

It was said that they were flying at -25 C !?

No bee can fly at that temperature. They can't even break the cluster, they are in limbo, suspended animation, they appear dead.
Cleansing flight? Not likely. One forgets that bees do not heat the hive. Therefore to go for a flight at -25C is impossible. Poor bee can't even walk to the entrance - much less - make a flight, however short?
They will crap on the spot, where they are at - if they got to go that bad?!
At that low temperature this need also is suppressed. They just have to wait for break in the weather!

Now about that experience, theory and fact? I would forget about that if you can, or at least put it aside for a while..? If you people live right, that too will come (age at least) to all of you - like it or not.

Ian - you got it partially right. They are going out to die - but you are forgetting that it is -25 outside. Perhaps not "nice and sunny" and not "inside" (where I know that it is not -25 C !? (My friend Dan Bingaman was the first in Canada who dug an underground shelter and wintered indoors! With government grant!)

I bet that the previous day temperature was way up and was most likely a nice and sunny day to boot?
Hive had heated up and bees broke the cluster... Overnight the temp dropped and next day something forced those bees out/disturbed them.
Could had been a man made disturbance? (the beek was observing the bees in flight at that temp? perhaps he/she was shoveling and banged the hive a few times?)
I would be inclined to put my money on mice in the hive? Perhaps even some sort of illness as Ian suggests - but not likely - for that I would need to know more facts about that hive. At least, if it survived the winter?! If some kind of illness disturbed them at that temperature - the hive was right there and than - doomed!

After a nice, warm day it takes about two days for the temperature inside the hive to fall to the temp of the outside and usualy a bit less.
(Insulation/tar-paper keeps cold out and also in)
For bees to take flight - there has to be a direct cause for them to take flight, like when defending a home! One makes one's mind and just go...... sort of like we did in the army?! GO! Go. . .

Bee -sick, or with full gut in need of releasing the load, such a bee takes a bit of time to get out of the hive, even in the best of weather. They mess about for a while, checking, sniffing, testing, if you will. They stop just at the edge of the entrance and test the air, communicate with the incoming bees, look around, take - gather their bearings, etc, etc...
In cold weather they will 99.9 % of the time stay right there, one atop the other - suspended in time - if you will. If weather improves, or at least sun shines warmly upon them - in the next day or two - they will come around and move back to the cluster? But most likely they are done for - cause the cold does not kil them - but they die of starvation!
The old, feeble and sick bees - if weather not permitting - will die and drop from the cluster.
This stuff I learned a long time ago, when working for commercial outfit. In those days one had to make a living - the best one knew how. Much was learned from father to son and from the books. Home PC was not even a dream yet. Internet did not exist. Now people are preoccupied with it and all kinds of information exists and is just on the ends of ones fingertips - so call for proof to your hearts delight!

In spring we were cleaning out dead outs and installing packages. I noticed that after a while a lot of bees dumped warmed up on the sun - started to fly!? The owner was perplexed - this was the way they have done it for years....
Especialy weak colonies, they take longer to come about if weather is not nice and that is the case in our parts, most often in Spring.
So, a bee is not dead - even though it may appear so?!
See, just last weekend it rained for two days and temps about +6 C. I picked up a handful of bees off a board at the watering can. They got caught by cold and could not make it back to the hives. I took them in the house and laid them on the table. After about ten minutes, wife started calling, to come and fix them up, since I play God and keep bringing them back from the dead. Sure!
They move around and to untrained eye they look sick and broken. (even to me they looked injured from the pounding rain?)
I mixed some sugar and stuck each ones mouth into the drop of sugar. They drank and within minutes they perked up and lifted their abdomen, which previously looked broken and lifeless.
I took them back to the hive and they joined their sisters which messed about the entrance, cause it was too cold for them to fly yet. . . .

Yes, this is how the day goes by for me, with too many years under the belt and nothing to do but pass the time by my hives....
Theories?
Heard and run in whole bunch of them in my time!
Scientific facts?
Yes, they have their place in our lives, all in the right place and at the right time?

A good start would be page 203 in the book: Mastering the Art of Beekeeping, by Ormond & Harry Aebi.

From the book:
.... in the morning of April 22, 1977 Father Markey stopped to see me. He stopped to observe hive #4 and saw what appeared to be a small dead bee on my plywood ground cover board below the landing. While he watched, another bee flew down from the landing, walked in a circle around the motionless bee and seemed to be talking to it. In a few moments the apparently dead bee began to move and come to life. When I came out of the house we watched it together. We saw the hive bee position itself mouth to mouth with a weak bee. In a minute or two the weak bee was noticeably stronger and more active and soon began to crawl around in obvious delight....

Well so it goes in that book. . .
But, that bee was out late the previous night and got hungry and weak, unable to fly. (Bees load up on fuel - exactly the amount needed to get to and back from where they are going) The hive-bee came to the rescue and fed it. In about 10 to 15 minutes such a "lucky" bee rejoins her sisters in the hive as if nothing were amiss.
Bees often feed starving sisters, even out in the field - but they will never feed nor care for sick, disabled, maimed or aged bees which are unable to be of further use to the hive as a whole. . . .


I beg your forgiveness for this rumbling - but, I had an itch to hear what you all had to say about this particular issue which is more at home in our parts of the woods - where cold is the norm, most of the year. . . .

Regards,
France

[Ian]

Did you even read what was said France?

[France]

Did you. . ?

[dgl1948]

Ian: France still thinks he lives in the coldest part of the world. He does not know that here on the prairies we winter in well wrapped hives that will trap heat from the cluster. Lots of days in the winter I have taken the temps inside a hive and they will read around the +20's inside a hive and can be very cold outside. Bees will leave the loose clusters in these hives and make a one way trip outside. Why, I am not, sure but like you I believe they are older bees leaving the hive to die. I have noticed the same as you have, early winter a lot of bees in the snow and then again late March. I do Know the chickadees like to hang around the yards feeding on the dead bees. And France, I have seen the impossible.

[Ian]

I have noticed t mite infected hives will abandon ship regardless the temp outside, leaving a huge ugly pile of dead bees infrount of the hive. I suppose they are acting along the same principle, that is sick bees leaving and dieing away from the hive.
Makes a beekeeper sad to see, nothing can be done,

But I always figured a good healthy yard should have a good light scattering of bees in the snow during winter. That also goes for indoor wintering, a light littering of bees on the floor.
I actually measure the dead fall in the wintering shed, sweep every month or so, gives me an idea of , well, something or another I guess