winter clusters

[Keith Jarrett]

Well, how do they look??? Clusters around here look pretty good, they sure ate alot of sub & syrup this fall. I get the best gauge of a over wintering hive when I can look at clusters on a cold morning, I tilt the hive forward and look underneath. How do your's look ?

[jim lyon]

We haven't fed this much syrup in the fall in years. It just seems to vanish into the clusters. Many of them have had four feeds and we are planning on feeding everything again in Texas in December. Hopefully the main fall hive shrink is over. The numbers seem to be holding up pretty well. That should answer the question about how the bees look.

[mnbeekeeper]

keith, that is how we determine if the hives should go to cali or not. last time we went threw all of them in the loading yards, when its cold highs in the 30s and 40s, we tip them up feel the weight look under it for bees. if you dont see bees or its lite then we open it up and see what needs to be done, (feed or shrink it to a single or shake it into another one if its its to small for a single.) i thought this fall we had some of the best and most colonies ive seen in 6 years. very few dead outs since the honey was pulled and the clusters were big still. we did put 3 and 4 feedings to most of them but they were heavy going out. most of the loads only holding closer to 400 than 500. hope this year they can get some good weather in the almonds and come to texas fat with bees and brood.

any info from you folks out in cali would be great. weather, prices, you know that sort of stuff.

[gregstahlman]

well can tip them forward and not see any bottom bars. take the lid off and cant see the top bars either. this is in a single deep. so i guess i cant really gauge how big the cluster is lol. dont know what that would be considered for frame count

[Keith Jarrett]

Xxxxxxx

[swarm_trapper]

the bees look good for this time of the year most are in singles much like gregs, and they are ten frames of bees so i guess i cant do much better than that. I do have some in doubles just for fun and to play with they are the same bees but sitting at about 15fr. Not the best bees but, not bad seeing how bad our last flow was. All are very light started feeding last week as soon as the honey came off, started putting pollen on today. Nick

[Keith Jarrett]

Nick, don't feel alone if it seems that the bees are light, been trying since aug to get weight on these things. Some, six- seven gallons worth.What is surprizing is that most of us didn't do much as far as a summer flow, But, many are very happy with the way there bees look. Most years, a poor flows relates to poor fall bees, But not this year.

[BEES4U]

Are there any updates about the sizes of winter clusters?