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What's your plan to rebuild your hive #'s from winter losses?

5K views 25 replies 16 participants last post by  lakebilly 
#1 ·
Here in NY lost close to 40 hives this winter.

The only treatment that I practised this year was to mineral oil vaporize. Not sure if I'll do that again, though I am sure that I will not treat w/chems.

I have plenty of equipment for a cpl hundred 10 frame & a cpl hundred 5 frame colonies.
I can't say what caused the losses. Some starved (my fault), then many w/plenty of stores.
Overwintered 5 frame nucs seemed to do better than 10 frame colonies....???

With a balance of selling bees & honey the goal.

What's your plan to rebuild your hive #'s from winter losses?

What precautions to take using equipment from losses?

What's your advice for treating drawn frames to redeploy?
 
#3 ·
Michael, what do you think of spraying a 50/50 bleach solution on drawn frames from dead colonies.
I don't expect to sell any now....hope to in future.

What do you think about leaving colonies in 5 frame?

With the resources I have I hope to raise queens this year.
 
#4 ·
yes, nuc your hives out, adopt the two queen single hive arrangement and make some honey to boot.

but more so on your point of losses, you should also adopt a disease monitoring program so that you know whats up in your hives. Lots of mite control options other than chem if you choose, especially if your nucing
 
#5 ·
Ian,

If there is ONE (amoungst many) place I need to educate myself @ it would be pest monitoring. I did the vaporizing on all my 10 frames because "can't hurt". maybe I over did it. Having read alot of the posts I would say that I am in the average for losses. I only worked w/a master beekeeper for 2 years till he died, haven't found anyone to take his place. I could use a mentor to help w/post mordem evaluations.

Would like to hear your mite options.

"two queen" tell me more! many details please (links). have read some not well versed about it.
 
#6 ·
I was just reading on Bee-l about this FGMO fogging and how it doesnt work. Personally I have never used it, but I think I will stick with traditional tried and true methods.

Make sure you dont have any foul brood in your used equipment. Other than that split away and get back your Apiary. Feed them light syrup once you start splitting.

Good luck. Maybe this year isnt the year for selling NUCs. It happens.
 
#8 ·
Well if you went from 80 to 40 and want to build back up to 80.

Assuming you can split 1 to 4, you are going to have to sacrifice 15 to 16 production hives out of your 40 survivors to make up nucs.

I'd do that this year, but I would be making an all out effort to adapt my management so as not to have to incur those type of losses regularly.


Good luck.

Don
 
#10 ·
I'm with a little bit of O.C.D., so I've been wondering what exactly is being defined as "contaminated frames". Were they sneezed on, coughed on, dropped in the dirt, or what?

For me frames/honeycombs are already quite fully inoculated with living organisms (parasitic, symbiotic, or probiotic) and many different types, also with chemical contaminants, both natural and artificial, from everywhere the forager bees travel. So, "contaminated" would be an entirely subjective, and not generically easily defined concept.
 
#11 ·
Overwintered 5 frame nucs seemed to do better than 10 frame colonies....?
No, the stronger the bee population the better for them to grow and cover their
broods. The concentration of bees is better than the amount of frame space in a colony.
Too much empty space will have other issue like pests, etc. But if you have 10 frame all covered with bees then it is fine too. Five frame is better to concentrate the bees to keep warm and better to defend the hive.

What's your plan to rebuild your hive #'s from winter losses? My plan is to raise my own queen using the OTS notching method. I have gentle queen so want to keep those gentle genetic here. And then make splits in proportion to the number of queens that hatched. They will be in nucs because of number of reasons for better management.

What precautions to take using equipment from losses? Diseases are a major concern because you never know what cause the losses in the first place. Only safe after testing had been done to make sure. So proceed with caution here!

What's your advice for treating drawn frames to redeploy? This depends on what is the issue/problem at hand. If no issue then can reuse as is. If problem found then rather not use them if the problem is unknown. Make sense to not recontaminate the existing new hive. At least, I think the wooden ware can be recycle if disinfected first. Plastic wooden ware I am not sure.

I have not use bleach on the combs yet. But thinking it is too much chemical use inside the hive already. And not sure if
bleach in whatever concentration can kill off any diseases that your hive equipment have.
 
#13 ·
lakebilly, I think you probably know you need to get better at figuring out what caused your winter losses before you put hundreds of colonies back in operation. Sounds to me like mite infestation is what led to the demise of your colonies, a few may have actually starved out from no food, but I'll bet the majority of them took a hit from the mites late in the fall/early winter when brood rearing stopped and the mites all jumped on the adult bees and the rest is history. I had mite losses too as I don't treat, I plan on making lots of splits this year and doing some kind of treatments for the first time. John
 
#14 ·
When the flow is on, at least 3 frames with the bees attached. Though I have tried one frame but have to baby sit all winter into early spring. One brood, one pollen/honey, one frame full of bees. Put the brood frame in the middle. Make the air space small so they can be close together. Again, the strength and the concentration of bees is critical to make a successful nuc. Then supplement feed syrup/honey and patty until the population is self sufficient. So far so good with a good queen I can make
4 nucs from one strong hive.
 
#17 ·
Southern raised queens are not as bad at northern wintering as many people want to think, I have used southern packages and queens for years and have had some very hardy queens and their offspring that have gone through many nasty northern winters just fine. There are some good and bad queens no matter where they are raised, and honestly I don't understand how northern raised queens can be superior at wintering over a southern queen, doesn't that trait have to be genetically inherited. Sorry for going off track a bit here. John
 
#19 ·
Having lots of stores left made me thinking that it was probably mites. I don't see any & I mineral oil misted them in Aug. I found 3-4...looking starved. I had a very short window to inspect. I was more interested in finding live colonies & making sure they had stores. It was about 40+degrees & late in the afternoon.
Catching swarms, some splits, raising queens (1st yr) will be my approach.

Two queen colony is what I am researching. I am seeing folks saying you get twice as much this or that from a 2 qn....uh, not sure how that is better. I would think that 51%+ would make it 'better'. I have lots of eq; supers, mating nucs, etc. & 3/55gallon drums of sugar....no $.
so 17-20 10 frame colonies & 10 overwintered nucs will(hopefully) be my starting point.
I will scorch woodenware & redeploy drawn frames. I appreciate all your input thanx.
 
#23 ·
I scorch as a precautionary measure, a lot of my eq. was bought used. no foul brood ever. I did have a few deadouts w/mice & their droppings. some of my frames had slight wax moth webbing.
My mentor used a 50/50 bleach solution on all drawn comb going out after sitting a while.
 
#25 ·
Mites cause a lot of deadouts I'm discovering, and it's important to do some sort of effective measurement of mite load before and after treatment to avoid the dead-outs.

Screen bottom boards with a sticky board will let you know if you have a serious problem very quickly -- wipe the board, put it back in, come back in two days, count the dead mites. If you have any significant numbers, treat. If not, then you should do a powdered sugar dusting and re-count, or a powdered sugar or ether roll.

If you've got significant numbers of mites in August/September, it's highly likely you will lose the hive over winter, so a treatment of some sort is called for. I will by using formic acid if I need to this year, or oxalic acid vapor, as I believe those are the least toxic and most effective. Will try HopGuard if it's available for the same reason.

It's probably not possible to completely eliminate the mites, but it is vital to reduce the levels down to the point where enough healthy, non-parasitized winter bees are present in the hive to over-winter well.

Protein nutrition is critical too, and you will have to check the amount of pollen available in the hives in August/Septemeber for the same reasons. If the winter bees are protein deficient, they die when they start raising brood in late winter and the hive dwindles out.

Peter
 
#26 ·
I bought a sifter to do dusting & I expect to do that.

Anyone use a vegetable oil to trap mites?

What's your plan for low pollen stores late fall?
 
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