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Treatment-Free, Winter 2012-2013, How's it going?

49K views 164 replies 54 participants last post by  Oldtimer 
#1 ·
For you treatment-free beekeepers out there, how is your winter progressing? Is the weather better or worse than usual? Lost hives? Feeding? Mishaps?

Winter here is going swimmingly. I wouldn't say it is as mild as last winter, but pretty close thus far. A couple more dips into the teens, but not the usual drops down in the single digits for the last two winters. No ice storms. No snow of note. But also no dandelions blooming all winter like we had last year either.

On the mishaps front, while I was gone over Christmas, our trampoline blew across the yard and knocked over two of my hives. They are back together, both seem to have eaten much of their stores while they were strewn about the yard.

No deadouts thus far.

Preparing for spring, trimmed three of my deep queen castle's down to mediums. I need to expand my collection of mediums significantly. I have no loose boxes but plenty of frames. Looks like it is time to build some more.

Already having people contact me about purchasing nucs. I'm glad they are getting an earlier start on it this year. Looking forward to refining my technique on raising queens and nucs. One thing to avoid this year, last year, I collected brood from outyard hives and brought it back to my main yard. It seems like most of the bees flying around ended up in one nuc. Need to figure out how to avoid that. Perhaps rotating nucs for a few days to spread the bees around. Perhaps not delivering all those frames of brood to the same batch of mating nucs.

Tell me how you all are faring.
 
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#133 ·
Well I just lost another 2 small cell hives. Took honey off them a month ago, inspected and set them up for winter with around a full deep of honey each. Some of them had mite levels that would have meant an immediate treatment, had they not been treatment free hives. Anyhow, got a call from the landowner yesterday, saying the bees were "very busy", plus there was a bunch of bees hanging on their barn.

Kind of knew what it must be, my heart sank. Drove out there, and sure enough, the two hives that were worst effected by mites were being robbed out. Took a look inside, brood showing severe pms nearly all cells affected. Surprised how fast they went down. The bunch of bees on the barn were gone, it's late fall here, can only assume they were absconders making a last ditch effort to survive.

Took a drive to where I have one solitary small cell hive, all on it's own. Opened it up expecting problems but all brood looked normal, plus there was no DWV. But then I noticed mites all over, one bee had 3 mites on it. Amazing, never seen anything like that in a hive seemingly so healthy. A few possibilities came to mind but here's two main ones. Maybe they just done some robbing of dying hives & picked up a heap of mites but it's not been long enough to do damage? Or, they have mites, but not the viruses mites spread so are able to tolerate a much higher number. Any thoughts?
 
#135 ·
i had the same two thoughts ot, and the third is that maybe they have some inherent resistance to the viruses.

time will tell.

sorry to hear about the losses already, as you are only a couple of weeks into fall there.

what were the mite levels last month?
 
#136 ·
Well I didn't do a count last month, just noticed some pms although only the odd cell at that time & normal brood hatching.

Re the other hive, yes did also wonder about possible virus resistance, it's one of the things we should be breeding for, not just mite resistance.

Yes I'll watch this hive & report back.
 
#137 ·
How can it be? SC bees don't get mites and are more resistant to secondary diseases. Dee, Barry and Michael told us so again and again.
 
#138 ·
3 of 3 made it. Winter was mild. All hives where three mediums, foundationless. Each was weighed two weeks ago when we had our first days that where warm enough for bees to fly. Weights ranged from 101-110 pounds. With equipment weight subtracted that leaves about fifty lbs of bees and honey in each hive.

As far as I can tell I have no mites at all, at least none found on the bottom board. I am also pretty remote, to my knowledge there are no other bees within five miles.
 
#139 ·
OT....maybe you can get Barry to do a sticky for your treatment free experiment thread. As it stands....your reports are likely to get scattered throughout other threads and much of the important continuity will be lost.
I, for one, truly appreciate an open minded trial but don't want to have to search the entire site to find your posts.
 
#142 ·
4 of my 9 hives died this winter. One was very small and weak last fall (did a bunch of splits last year) and I didn't expect it to survive, and I'm pretty sure I killed one this late winter that I fed via baggie and forgot to check. Appears to have dripped down onto the cluster.
 
#146 ·
I'm down 12 out of 41, with 2 more that look weak (ouch). Finally pollen coming in this week so the worst may be over.

All but 3 of the losses are from the same bee yard. No pollen in the dead outs at that yard, drought and poor fall forage, I should have moved that yard to a better location. Some dead mites on the bottom boards but not many. Treatment free beginner mistakes are expensive.

Surviving hives look good.


Bummed regards. ....Don
 
#151 ·
After the disappointment with my treatment free hives, went and checked the small cell treatment free nucs yesterday. Was kinda expecting the worst.

However, pleasant surprise! of the 21, 3 were queenless, as the last round of queen cells that went in around a month ago, 3 had failed to mate. So I pulled dividers and combined them with their neighbors. Last time I went there, when caged queens and planted cells a month ago, a number of nucs were looking poorly with mites, pms and dwv. This time, amazingly, all those nucs were fine. Not a sign of a mite.

Just wish somebody new how that works.

Just one nuc, one that had a few mites last time but was not the worst, is now looking pretty bad, really do doubt it will make the winter but have left it, to see.

Only bad thing that happened, winter's around the corner so all nucs that needed it were given a comb of honey. From somewhere and I don't know where, hoards of robbers showed up & all nucs were getting harassed. Nothing much I could do just shut everything and got out of there.

Feeling a bit better now, it's looking pretty likely there will be surviving small cell treatment free nucs next spring to restock the deadout small cell hives.

I have a question for you treatment free folks. I'll have to store the deadout hives over winter, with black combs, pollen, and dead brood, perfect wax moth fodder. If I do nothing, by spring, these will be totally destroyed by wax moths. What I normally do if storing anything that will attract wax moths, is put a fume board on top of the stack, and once a month or so I'll put a little formic acid on the fume board, kills any wax moths. Is that considered a treatment? and if it is what should I do? (deep freeze is out of the question). Oh by the way winters here are mild, wax moths are very active all winter.
 
#162 ·
However, pleasant surprise! of the 21, 3 were queenless, as the last round of queen cells that went in around a month ago, 3 had failed to mate. So I pulled dividers and combined them with their neighbors. Last time I went there, when caged queens and planted cells a month ago, a number of nucs were looking poorly with mites, pms and dwv. This time, amazingly, all those nucs were fine. Not a sign of a mite.

Just wish somebody new how that works.

Careful now Kiwi, you are going to spoil your master plan. ;)
 
#152 ·
great report ot, very encouraging.

i have been storing mine in my garage, with the boxes turned on end and no bottom or top so that the light can get in.

i have a freezer, but only so much room, so i have been rotating them.

do you think after freezing that some kind of mosquito netting would keep the moths out?
 
#156 ·
Could you rotate just the frames through your kitchen freezer? It would take a lot longer but perhaps better than nothing.

A couple years ago, I acquired some old window screens (the kind with a metal frame) that someone had tossed out. I stacked a few boxes and put on a screen then a few more boxes then another screen, etc. My theory was that if one box did have wax moth eggs that hatched, they would be limited to just a few boxes. -js
 
#155 ·
Hi Rio, I think that works for Sol because of his cold winters.

For me, the 2 hives I have left (which may yet be lost), would not be able to cover all the combs in the other boxes if I put them on, and the weather is warm enough wax moths would run amuck.
 
#157 ·
Well it's possible Dixiebooks, although I have not put this suggestion to the "primary user of the kitchen" yet LOL.

Screens can work, sometimes. But being a cheapskate, I'm probably looking for an easier, and foolproof way. Reading a past thread on the treatment free forum, acetic acid and bleach were not considered treatments when used to sterilize equipment not in use, so I may just pump for a bit of formic in the boxes long as it's not used on any actual bees.
 
#161 ·
I simply stack up the supers outside with frames and combs, and unimpeded air flow prevents the problem. Wax moths hate air flow, and sun. It's worked for me. I just used two 1x2's inbetween each box (sometimes bed slats ... hey, it's what I had on hand at the time), but it was during winter. Rain was not a problem. Just put a top on the top box and the air flow will dry out any combs on the edges that get a little rain.
 
#165 ·
OK well I'll do it, store them with plenty ventilation & see what happens. I'll be watching like a hawk though, a lot of effort went into getting those small cell combs.

There has always been less mites in my nucs than the hives, whether treated, or not. I think it's because the nucs get constant brood breaks, every time a queen is removed and they are given a new queen cell.

There is also something about location, some of my sites the bees (treated or not), get less mites, than at other sites. It is easy to understand about the nucs with brood breaks, how location affects is less clear.
 
#164 ·
I removed a section of the roof on my storage shed and replaced it with clear corrugated plastic panels. I hang frames from the bottoms of the trusses so that air and light get to them which keeps wax moth damage to an absolute minimum. Sometimes I lose a frame of good comb if the wind knocks a frame down and the comb breaks, I also get dirt/dust in the combs while they hang... Airflow and sunlight :)
 
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