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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?
 
#193 ·
#194 ·
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq243x6bu4I

Lauri's Franken hive (Shown in above post) @ 46 degrees

Another day at 46 degrees and once again the only hive that is active. I'll be making more of these 1 1/2" thick deeps next year. Anyone thinking about making a top bar hive should also consider car decking in my opinion. I am impressed with the overwintering success and colony contentment this hive is showing.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Miller-Compound-HoneyBees-and-Agriculture/256954971040510
 
#197 ·
6" fluffy snow this morning. Checked this afternoon and the snow had melted away from all my (reduced) entrances like there was a warm draft from inside. I'm taking it as encouraging news. I did lose a weak hive to robbing during Indian Summer so I'm down one to 16.
 
#199 ·
Checked my hives today and I am one lucky dude. Seen the water line and debris on my hive stand legs where the river went over its banks and flooded the flat my hives are on!! Flowed enough to move some 4x4 posts around that I had on the ground!! Anyhow, double deep nuc #1 had small numbers that I could see from the top and what looked like not much stores. The 3 two deep 10 framers are doing great!! The other two nucs are holding as well. I am going to run frames of honey out to them tomorrow from my dead out, and throw some pollen patties on. Temps are going to get around 30 at night all week, so they will need the food. As for the Eucalyptus bloom, its starting to happen for the globe eucs along the road, but I will be moving my bees in just over a week to their new home, dont need to lose hives to flood!! Didnt check the lone city hive, so no info on how that one is doing!!
 
#200 ·
I finally got around to extracting my dead out honey. After warming the honey, I still had to put a heat bulb under the extractor for better flow. (It's cold here!)
Cookware and bakeware Small appliance


Here are some of the girls yesterday going after Eucalyptus. *(Note the ant proof hive stand working like a charm).
Architecture Roof
 
#206 ·
It's so cold that Olly has to use the bottom end of his bi-focals to pee!
Bifocals don't help when your pot belly is as big as a double brood chamber and your desired target as small as a house mouse.
 
#203 ·
Dan,

When it gets cold there is an invasion of Argentine ants. Almost every tenant in the building calls me to spray them. They eventually smell the honey and armies ascend on the roof hives. Even my strongest hives can't stop the on-slot. I've tried everything and they keep on coming until I finally had enough and came up with these upside down grease traps. It's the only thing that works.
 
#209 ·
Charlie, how long is your stand and how far apart are the doll rods?? How many hives do you get on each stand?
This particular stand is 8' long with 6 support dowels spaced evenly, 3 on each side. I have a 12' stand at my San Mateo yard that requires 8 dowels, 4 on each side spaced evenly for proper load support. I can place 8 hives on my 12' stand and 5 hives on my 8' stand but I use 8 frame equipment which is 14" wide. 10 frame equipment is obviously wider so you could probably get 4 10 frame hives on an 8' stand with adequate room between each hive.

If you're going through the time and expense to build one I would do a 12' stand. You could even build a 16' stand with 10 support dowels depending on how many hives you have. Something to keep in mind if you plan on making up nucs or doing splits, this stand is excellent to keep ants away while they're growing and gaining strength so make it longer than what you need at this point and time.
 
#211 ·
On the way up to our property I stopped to feed the bees some frames of honey, and to my surprise they are doing a lot better than I thought with the nucs covering 4 of the bottom five frames!! Even have fresh nectar from Eucalyptus coming in!! I dropped a couple capped frames in each nuc and called it good, lots of bees flying out of the hives as well, so if I am lucky I might have 7 of 8 hives make to spring build up! They also cleaned up the SBB of dead bees that was there yesterday. Six of my remaining seven hives are either from swarms or cut outs. Cant wait to do some splitting and grafting from these hives in the spring!!
 
#213 ·
The only hives that I have had destroyed by ants were nucs with queen cage candy in them. What are you doing wrong?
 
#215 ·
I put a frame of honey in all my nucs I make up and that's obviously what they're after. My San Mateo, San Jose and Bolinas yards have never had ants. Both Saratoga yards have more ants than soil!

Go figure! :s
 
#216 ·
If you have top feeders and ya get alot of dead ants in the feeder will that cause any type of disease ?
I had alot of ants in the bee yards and i tryed cinnamon waste of time and money .
I'm going with baiting the ants with poison come spring we'll se if it works.
 
#217 ·
Glock,

Not sure about the dead ants causing disease. As far as the ant poison, that didn't work for me. In looking at your hive stand, it wouldn't take much to make it ant proof. Just add another layer of hive joist with grease dowels in between.
 
#219 ·
Glock,

I think it would work as a temporary measure but rain and debris would eventually break it down causing allot of touch up using allot of grease. The upside down PVC grease cups eliminate that where you hardly ever have to do any maintenance. If you place your hives directly over the grease cups, you never have to worry about any touch up.
 
#220 ·
i was able to get rid of some pesky sugar ants (very small and black, not fire ants).

they took the baited fire ant granules in just like the fire ants do.

(on fire ants, i plan on leaving some mounds in the vicinity of the hives, i think they help with hive beetles)

also, if i found sugar ants' hole in the ground, i squirted some bug stuff into the hole.

they're gone now.
 
#221 ·
Do you have a pic or web addy do you?
I'm not getting what you mean getting old.:)
Thank you.
Do you mean like 3in pvc caps{for pluming} fliped upside down filled with gease and put the caps on the 4x4s and the the hive on top them?
 
#229 ·
I peaked in the observation window of my weaker hive today and they are still hanging in. There were a few dead bees and some capping wax crumbs visible under the cluster but the bees were moving in place keeping warm. Two more months! (I did order an "insurance package" just in case though ...)
 
#230 ·
Checked my hives yesterday, the temperatures have finally moderated into the 50 degree range during the day after weeks of freezing weather. All six hives have been house cleaning and are still heavy when hefted, looking good so far. :thumbsup: We still have a ways to go before were out of the woods.
 
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