Are you ready for the Odfrank overwintering challenge?

[cg3]

Went in yesterday to check stores. It appears I'm going to lose another. Very small cluster. In the others, I'm starting to see increased population, stores low, taking candy and pollen substiyute.

[Lauri]

Here are two videos I took on 3-5-13 of two of my hives that are growing fast and needed to be moved into a larger hive for more space. (Colonies GROWING in Western Washington State) You can see the queens and the frame of bees and capped brood. My bees are overwintering fantastically.
Every hive I check has eggs and brood, is healthy, growing and active.
A DRAMATIC difference from when I tried to over winter hives with the original queen of unknown quality and genetics that came with the nucs or packages I had purchased. My management style was the same..The only real difference now, I have my own home raised queens with proven hardy Northern genetics heading the hives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-ID-ywOEVk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seOlamVENb8

More photos and info on facebook page. Yes, I am feeding protein patties.I started four weeks ago giving them dry Bee Pro in an outdoor feeder, when the bees started going after the bag of corn in the barn. And they all have sugar bricks weather they need them or not. Most hives are still very heavy, but they like my sugar brick recipe and like the accessibility to them-right above the cluster.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Miller...56954971040510




Below you can see the space in the center between the sugar. Two weeks ago, that space held a big protein patty! Totally consumed and licked clean.




I doubled the size of the patty this time.



Give them a puff and they scadaddle down so I can apply the patty without casualties.



Here's some spare mini deep frames filled for spring feeding or mating nucs:


Here's my BeeWeaver daughter queen..overwintering very well. Original Beeweaver queen overwintered very well in 2011-2012 too.



The only hives I lost were no surprise. Most were gone by fall. Many of the nucs I bought last spring were duds. I just let them go rather than baby them and medicate them. I made the mistake of leaving the original queens with the colonies. They were huge and good looking,. They were basically the only colonies I have lost.

I am at 63 strong colonies + five that have a queen and half frame or so of bees. Even those five are growing and have capped brood and eggs. They all just seem content. No lathargic little clusters stuck in a corner.

[squarepeg]

very nice lauri!

[GLOCK]

Lauri man you have some nice bee equipment and it sounds like you know your bee's good luck this coming year.
We are going to be in the uper 50s this sunday and i have 12 hives a hummin 4 are lite so i'm going to top off mine with sugar .
Can't wait till next month.

[WWW]

Nice pic's, and yes April will be a busy month for us here in this part of the country.

cg3, I hope your very small cluster will pull through ok, the weather is looking a bit better now.

Charlie, thanks for helping all of us get through the winter by creating this thread to have something to look forward to each day, I really enjoyed it.

[GLOCK]

Well the bee's where flying today and it's going to be just as nice tomorro i'm going to add some honey and sugar to my lite ones {2 hives and 2 nucs}I'm going to say i ended up with 10 hives and 2 nucs i hit my goal plus 2

[Charlie B]

Olly, we're all waiting on your final hive count!

[odfrank]

Olly, we're all waiting on your final hive count!

The math is confusing me....
Divide hives remaining by hives at onset equals percent lost?

[Charlie B]

Just give me before and after numbers, I'll do it for you.

[odfrank]

83 started 33 died - 40.24% loss

Home yard with 33 starting 19 died - 58% loss
Outyards 49 started 14 died - 28.5% loss

Sites with harshest climate had best survival rates. Outyards averaged 3 hives per yard starting. So my yard with 33 and friend's yard with 12 both had large losses, similar climate. Maybe crowding plays a roll also. Maybe I should move my trailers to the harsher climate sites in September. What date?

Did I win?

[BayHighlandBees]

is it numbers or is it a percentage that wins?

[KQ6AR]

Thanks OD,
With the exception of the two guys loosing several nucs I was the high number this year.
Mine where 28% like you're outyards, worst year in 3 years for me. Only treatment powdered sugar.

[Seymore]

Dan, had you previously been treating and this was the first year to go to ps?

[Charlie B]

is it numbers or is it a percentage that wins?

The lowest % of dead outs will win in the following categories.

Categories as follows:
1-5 hives (with lowest % of dead outs).
5-10 hives
10-20 hives
20-30 hives
30-40 hives
40-50 hives
50-100 hives
Over 100 hives

Remember, nucs count as hives.

[odfrank]

The lowest % of dead outs will win in the following categories.

>We'll go by number of hives lost beginning October 1, 2012 thru March 1, 2013.

This is what you said in post #1. As soon as I announce my winning loses you reverse the rules of the competition because you can't stand to see me win another of your bogus competitions. I have worked very hard all winter to make sure my bees die a slow gruesome death in order to win this contest. This is totally unfair. I am always a loser. For once i wanted to be a winner. I am leaving right now to give my daughter a ride to San Francisco and i will stop on the way back to set my annual bait hive near your house. Now may the best man win.

[GLOCK]

>We'll go by number of hives lost beginning October 1, 2012 thru March 1, 2013.

This is what you said in post #1. As soon as I announce my winning loses you reverse the rules of the competition because you can't stand to see me win another of your bogus competitions. I have worked very hard all winter to make sure my bees die a slow gruesome death in order to win this contest. This is totally unfair. I am always a loser. For once i wanted to be a winner. I am leaving right now to give my daughter a ride to San Francisco and i will stop on the way back to set my annual bait hive near your house. Now may the best man win.

[KQ6AR]

Charley screwed up, You can't go by the number lost a guy with 100 hives losing 10 would only be 10%.
I think % is the only fair way to compare apples with oranges.


Hi Seymore, the strongest treatment I've ever used was honey bee healthy. Have always been chemical free by my definition.

Dan, had you previously been treating and this was the first year to go to ps?

[Charlie B]

>We'll go by number of hives lost beginning October 1, 2012 thru March 1, 2013.

This is what you said in post #1. As soon as I announce my winning loses you reverse the rules of the competition because you can't stand to see me win another of your bogus competitions. I have worked very hard all winter to make sure my bees die a slow gruesome death in order to win this contest. This is totally unfair. I am always a loser. For once i wanted to be a winner.

[Charlie B]

Charley screwed up, You can't go by the number lost a guy with 100 hives losing 10 would only be 10%.
I think % is the only fair way to compare apples with oranges.

Dan, Dan, Dan, using your formula a person with one hive that makes it through the Winter has 0% loss and beats Olly. That's not right!

[odfrank]

Dan, Dan, Dan, using your formula a person with one hive that makes it through the Winter has 0% lose and beats Olly. That's not right!

That person has the smallest percent loss. 0% is smaller than 10%. You can't even spell "loss".

Here I am this afternoon, giddy with excitement after placing a bait hive one mile from your apiary. The swarm has to cross Golden Gate Park, fly up 25th Avenue, make a right and left onto 26th Avenue and into my bait hive:



Here is a hint to the location in the Sunset District in a Bonsai garden: