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Winter losses vs. Summer gains

180K views 644 replies 60 participants last post by  Oldtimer 
#1 ·
From time to time, there are complaints that there is too much bickering and arguing and people aren't getting to talk about what they want. Well, I can't do anything about that, people are people.

But what I can do and what I like to do is answer questions. So I want to give everybody the free and explicit opportunity to ask serious questions. If you want to be treatment-free, or if you are weighing your options, ask away. I want to help you. I'm not going to be answering challenges or defending my methods or viewpoint. I want to help you if you want to be helped. I want to tell you what you want to know, not what you want to hear. I had tons of questions and many of them will be the same ones you are asking now. You can even go back to 2003 and see them for yourself in the archives.

So ask away. You have my ear.
 
#77 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

good afternoon sol. how are your bees overwintering so far up there?

so far so good here, 17 out of 17 still kicking.

a few are light, and i hope to get out when in warms up tomorrow and move some honey from the heavy ones to the lighter ones.
 
#79 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

how are your bees overwintering so far up there?
So far, all the ones I went into winter with are still alive. That's a total of 23. I did socialize some of the honey (only one hive), and I am feeding a few (all yearlings) with granulated sugar.

I've mentioned a number of times a hive that I have that I have owned continuously (with unbroken natural lineage) since April of 2003. That hive did quite well this last year and produced 17 queens (before mating etc.). But before Christmas, it was knocked over by our trampoline as it rolled across the yard, distributing its parts across the landscape. It may have been a while before anyone noticed (I was in Oregon) and the hive seems to have used up much of its stores during the time it was exposed to the elements. It is still alive though, and being fed with sugar which it is taking.

Other than that, things have been going fine.
 
#78 ·
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Thanks Solomon, I'm just considering different options. For me to get nucs is a very long drive, unless I get them in Portland three hours away and what I dont like about those is you dont know if your getting Italians or Carnies. I like the Carnies but they dont winter well here. For the first time in my beekeeping career I am going to try to pull nucs out of the one hive that looks like it will make it through the winter. I'm sure I will have some questions for you before I try that.
 
#84 ·
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Hello from Pittsburg Kansas,

Well I just started keeping Bees last summer and have read a bunch of books, reasearched the internet and downloaded podcasts. I still get confused, so anywahy here is my Question.

History of the bees: Home Yard
Purchased 5 nucs from a man 40 miles from me when i attended his bee class. He promoted chemical treatmeants, After reasearching i decided to not treat the bees and did not. They seem to be doing great.

History of the bees: 560 Yard
Did a cut out on hive 1 and hive 2 was a trap out, I ended up letting the bees requeen do to failure of the trap out queen. Hive 1 is doing great and about soccer ball size as of today with all the honey stores in the deep broad box above them. Hive 2 has was combined with a have that went queenless in the home yard and is very small but has several pounds of honey stored above the brood box.


Question- Home Yard-I have on Deep 10 frame and a meduim super on top.
Most of the hives seemed to weight about 25-30lbs(total heft) and had alot of healthy bees. When or should a feed these? They seemed light. One was really good and had a full meduim super and honey in the brood box. I just dont want the others to starve.

PS: I regressed these striaght to 4.95 and did not treat. The nucs came from treated large cell bees, they are now alot smaller.

Question 2-560 Yard- There are 2 Hives, the two hives one a removal and the other a trap out. Hive one had a good size circle of bees and the top deep brood box was still full of honey(two 10 frame deeps is the hive structure). Hive 2 had the same as one except there were not very many bees. Again, Do i need to feed or what are your thoughts.

Any help is appreciacted. Thanks
 
#85 ·
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Bobcat,
My general rule regarding when to feed in the middle of winter is this: If when I open the hive and look down on the cluster (easier to do at night with a flashlight) I can see capped honey, then they probably don't need to be fed yet. There is a crucial difference between our locations in which your bees will likely need more honey to make it back around to flowers.

You'll ultimately have to make the determination. But if they're not going to starve, there's no reason to feed them. If they are going to starve, why? If it's your fault, make amends. If it's their fault, either let them go or put them on the requeening list. The more you do this, the more these decisions will come automatically. I wish you success.
 
#87 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

Bobcat,
My general rule regarding when to feed in the middle of winter is this: If when I open the hive and look down on the cluster (easier to do at night with a flashlight) I can see capped honey, then they probably don't need to be fed yet. There is a crucial difference between our locations in which your bees will likely need more honey to make it back around to flowers.

You'll ultimately have to make the determination. But if they're not going to starve, there's no reason to feed them. If they are going to starve, why? If it's your fault, make amends. If it's their fault, either let them go or put them on the requeening list. The more you do this, the more these decisions will come automatically. I wish you success.[/QUOTE

Ok, that said:

The bees were in the brood box below the honey super on some of hives. Will the move into the honey? If it is cold, can the move up into the honey or should I center the frames after awhile.

Also the ones that are lite and only have a couple frames of honey in the super, should I steel some frames from the strong hive with a full super?

One more: the size of the hives are about a soccer ball, I presume that is good. with a flower around April 15, what should the hive weight at his point in the winter cycle. I am only 2.5 hours North of Fayetteville.
Thanks for the response!
 
#89 ·
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Bobcat,I don't know your area but based on the flowering timetable you've mentioned, it is the exact reverse (6 months out) of an area I used to work in my country.

Feed stores wise, we used to winter the hives down with the equivalent of 6 full deep frames of honey. Not much of that was eaten through winter but it's mostly eaten once spring brood raising starts. We did a spring round where we checked food stores and the occasional hive would need some more food, but 6 combs worked for most.

Hives that don't have enough, and to my mind 2 frames are not enough in the flowering scenario you have mentioned, have 2 options. Cut brood raising drastically and be a very small weak hive at the start of flowering, or some strains will just raise heaps of brood anyway and then run out of honey and starve. Obviously neither is a good option.

What you should be doing this spring is observing what the bees reasonably use, and then armed with this knowledge, ensure you leave each hive with this amount in fall. This spring will be a good time for you to find this out. You will be a better and more confident beekeeper when you have discovered the feed requirements for your sites and can leave each hive with the correct amount in fall and state with confidence they have the right amount, barring unusual weather conditions in spring, which you would deal with at the time.

Sol, a question. You stated you have never lost a hive to starvation. Elsewhere you have said you don't lose hives to mites. I'm curious about the hives you lose, what is it to?
 
#90 ·
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Hello from Connecticut! First winter, only one hive. Started with a nuc in May which went on to do great from my beginners perspective. I took 63 lbs of honey and they went into the winter with 2 deeps as full as can be.
I did some powdered sugar tests for mite counts and they were always low so I decided not to treat with mite away quick strips as I had been instructed too.
Quick inspection yesterday, all seems well. Bees covering all 10 frames when I opened it up. Should I pull frames to check and disrupt the hive or just leave them alone?
I also scraped out a bunch of dead bees from the bottom board, 75 or so, and counted about 20 dead mites in the mix. (This was the first time I've check them since the beginning of Dec.)
Can I, should I dust them with powdered sugar during the winter to dislodge more mites?
Thanks
 
#91 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

Quick inspection yesterday, all seems well. Bees covering all 10 frames when I opened it up. Should I pull frames to check and disrupt the hive or just leave them alone?
Just leave them alone. You might check to see if they still have honey capped. I like to use a flashlight on a cold dark night so they don't fly out and get all disturbed.


Can I, should I dust them with powdered sugar during the winter to dislodge more mites?
Not if you want me to answer your questions. :no: ;) Can you? They're your bees. Should you? No.
 
#96 ·
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The only queens I have bought in the last several years were from Zia Queenbee. Most of them were good, some very mean, some kind of mean, few gentle.

My typical hive configuration is 5 deeps with upper and lower entrances, no queen excluders. However, I am slowly switching to mediums which means 5 deeps will be replaced by 7-8 mediums eventually.

I harvest in June and leave all honey collected from then on. Usually hives lose weight over the summer. Some die. Lately I have had more summer dead outs than winter.
 
#98 ·
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Solomon: Why do bees make holes in some of their combs? They look to be intentional, as in rather uniform in size, clean edges, no leaking honey, etc.

Also, I ordered and received a top bar hive that has to be assembled. Is it okay to use some wood glue here and there as long as I give it plenty of time for the fumes to dissipate before bee installation?

Sondra
 
#154 ·
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Why do bees make holes in some of their combs? They look to be intentional, as in rather uniform in size, clean edges, no leaking honey, etc.
I read a study where they were looking at making holes in comb to provide access to other combs during the winter. The cluster was more mobile and had fewer problems moving from comb to comb. I have doubts that the bees know that, but it helps. I have seen holes in comb after a comb was damaged. They smooth out the damage nicely.

Ted
 
#156 ·
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I read a study where they were looking at making holes in comb to provide access to other combs during the winter.
Somebody once told me about how they took a bunch of plastic foundations and drilled holes in them (they had probably read that study) so that the bees could get through and move around. But the bees filled all the holes in with comb.
 
#99 ·
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We like to think of combs as nice straight and neat. Bees have no such concern. They will build comb in some very interesting shapes. Our frames and hives attempt to cause them to build comb how we want it with varying degrees of success. As far as why they build holes, I don't know. I had the idea to drill some holes in plastic frames, but was told they will fill in the holes just as often as not. This is one thing I wish we understood better to give them the best opportunity, but we don't know for sure yet.

I see no reason why not to use wood glue. I use Tite-Bond III on all my boxes. It's much cheaper by the gallon if you use it in any volume. I wasn't aware wood glue had all that many fumes to speak of.
 
#100 ·
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Titebond II and Titebond III are considered food-safe for use in making kitchen cutting boards.

Are Titebond Glues safe to use?All of our Titebond wood glues are safe to use and produce no harmful fumes. They meet the requirements of ASTM D4236 for safe use with arts and crafts. Titebond III Ultimate Wood Glue and Titebond II Premium Wood Glue have both been approved for indirect food contact. For this reason, it is the glue that we recommend for making cutting boards. We do recommend wearing gloves when working with the Titebond Polyurethane Glue because repeated use of the product with bare hands could lead to a sensitivity to those types of products.

http://www.titebond.com/frequently_asked_questions.aspx
 
#101 ·
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The main reason they make holes is just to have a pathway to the other side of the comb. Often but not always these holes are started by some damage to the comb done by the beekeeper then the bees decide to continue it as a hole.
 
#103 ·
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Yes. I use mating nucs made from full size deep combs, quite often they don't have a lot of bees. In these circumstances they'll often make a hole, as the cluster does not go to the edge of the comb and they want good access.

At one time one of the plastic foundation manufacturers was making the sheets with an optional snap off corner, to allow the bees to do their hole making thing, if they wished.

Hole making is less prevalent in strong hives but they still may choose to do it.
 
#104 ·
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Years ago when we used Dadant Duragilt foundation (before the days of plastic formed foundation like Ritecell) it came with circular punchouts at the bottom of each sheet. As Oldtimer indicated, they are commonly called communication holes allowing the bees free access through the combs. In the wild they will also construct them on their own.
 
#105 ·
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Here's a question.

This is going to be my third year keeping bees. My first year I bought five packages from a producer and of the five two died. The two that died were probably a direct result of my learning curve. I think I killed a queen by accident in one hive and the other hive just didn't build up adequate stores. Of the three remaining hives, all three are still alive going into my third season, checked them as recently as last week and all three roared back when I knocked on the side of the hives.

In my second season I purchased thirty-three more packages, made two splits, and got one swarm from one of my original three hives bringing my total number of hives to thirty-nine. Thirty-eight of the thirty-nine hives are alive as of this writing along with one strong nuc I produced last year.

Going forward with my little operation I intend to produce somewhere around two hundred nucs this season from these thirty-nine colonies, none of which have had any treatments. My question being, at what point would the treatment free community on beesource consider this a successful operation? I don't consider a hive lost if I have to add brood and allow them to raise their own queen (the case with six of my packages that had queens dead on arrival). I learned to graft and raise queens last year and was able to successfully produce around forty queens in each attempt. My careless handling of the queens killed some of them off and not fully understanding the best practices for introducing virgin cells killed many more off but these are all things to be expected while learning. This year I will no doubt be much more successful, that being said, I can't imagine my operation going down the toilet unless I suffer a 100% loss through the winter. I live in an area where state average yield is a meager 45# per hive, and yet I haven't seemed to have many problems in the past couple of seasons. So, how do I calculate success and failure?

*edit*

All of my packages came from a commercial beekeeper that migrates to California and treats all of his hives accordingly, I haven't treated; and yes, I know how some people feel about packages.
 
#108 ·
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My question being, at what point would the treatment free community on beesource consider this a successful operation?
I've quit answering this question. You get to decide if you're successful based on your own criteria. Next, your customers decide after being happy with your product. I cannot speak for the rest of the beekeeping community. This thread is not about deciding what is success, it's about people needing help and being able to find it from someone with relevant experience and a willingness to share.
 
#106 ·
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Is your operation successful? I would say for the amount of time you've been going you have been extremely successful, and are obviously doing most things right, some people just have what it takes.

Be aware, there's a relatively common them where treatment free beeks go well for several years then have a major crash. However because you are building hive numbers aggressively, you ought to be able to ride anything like that out. That's IF the crash happens, it may not.
 
#107 ·
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I kind of feel like that's my unspoken strategy. Continue to multiply numbers so in the event that I do have a series of hive failures I'll have other hives in production or at least nucs and queens ready to go that can fill the gap. My strategy in loose terms is to remain ahead of the deadout curve by continually raising more bees. I'm trying to outbreed the problem in the hopes that the bees that survive will be heartier then the last until I hit an eventual leveling off point.
 
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