Beesource Beekeeping Forums banner

My Indoor Wintering Setup

44K views 193 replies 25 participants last post by  Phoebee 
#1 ·
I should get a few pics to upload but my site is a ~8x10 garden shed. I moved to the property this summer and I have had two nearly 100% loss winters. So I decided to keep my bees in the shed this winter. It required some repairs and I insulatedthe shed. I then got electric setup with outlets and lights. I used dryer vents for ventilation on opposite sides of the shed. One has a fan that sucks air in and the other passively lets it out. That is set on a timer to run for half an hour twice a day. I also have a small electric heater in the shed. Right now it's set to a timer and I have approximated the 40 degree setting on it. I do have a thermocube in the mail. It's a neat little device that you plug right in to an outlet. It has a thermostat in it that will only power whatever you plug into it between 35-45 degrees. So when that comes I will simply use that instead of a timer. I have a wireless thermostat in there and the monitor indicates that the temp is between 30-50 right now, but that should be more tightly regulated once the thermocube arrives. My doors are essentially sealed but when it got warm today there were a few bees outside so I wonder if there is a small opening at the base of the door. I just opened the door and let them do their thing.

So anything I should be doing differently?

Should I continue to open the doors on nice days?

Should my fan run more often?

Should I stress out about finding that small crack? It's dang dark in there when I look from inside.

It seems a lot of my loss comes in March when we get a week of subzero temps. Hoping this avoids that problem and I can be more successful in the future. Replacing bees is expensive.
 
See less See more
#41 ·
three hives will not take much air flow. Exchange the air during the day time to conserve heat.

One winter the hives went in lighter because I got behind and the weather turned foul. I started seeing starved hives as winter dragged on so I started feeding my nucs and single hives. Too much work. Agitates the bees, syrup messes up the floor, bees sting you as you work the narrow isles and feeding 200ml at a time gets tired real fast., As long as you have them up to weight in the fall there should be no thought of feeding through the winter.

some guys will provide water for the bees. They buy bottled water, poke a hole in the bottom side and place it on the landing board next to the cluster.
 
#42 ·
Dan Bush, I think the photos you are referring to are from last winter. Ian, please correct me if need be. Last winter Ian was worried about the bees not being able to access the honey because there was so little humidity in the cold air that was coming in from outside. This factor is of particular concern to Northern Canadians because of the tendency of their granola honey to granulate.
 
#45 ·
I fed my bee two winters ago. But Adrian, yes, I was worried about the low humidity in the wintering shed last years because of the continuous cold dry weather. Instead of providing water to the hives I regulated the humidity in the wintering room through out this extended cold period. It helped form condensation within the hive and I think satisfied what was needed.
 
#47 ·
My intake problem is that I have styrofoam damps that can freeze up during periods of prolong cold like last year. I think I would need a continuous high volume air flow for this not to occur. I don't think the frost was the problem, but rather a melt and the subsequent cold weather freezing the base of the damper. I'm considering putting some insulation over the hoods outside or directing a circulation fan towards the intakes. Considering I've never had a problem before, I may just leave it and watch for the problem during prolonged cold spells.
 
#50 ·
B84
I've just been venting my bees twice a day "by the door" but tomarrow I'll be hooking up the exhaust fan to run about 5 mins per hour, just because I've got more hives in there and think the fresh air will be a plus...I have some dead bees on the floor but they are even, so I think they arn't traveling to light or they would be more directional and in groups by the light..I didn't put on the heat untill yesterday when the outside temp went below zero and the bees couldn't keep it above 32 anymore on their own. The cube is keeping it between 35 and 45 F and the humidity has dropped also,,,I have quilt boxes on the hives for just that reason but now it looks like the humidity will be in line,,,about 55% by the remote temp/humidity wireless sensor...:)

==McBee7==
 
#51 ·
We will see how this goes but I feel confident in the science behind wintering in this fashion. I can not only reduce consumption of honey stores but I can also prevent freezing of small colonies and prevent those nasty March days from killing off my hives at the finish line.
 
#54 ·
It must really get dry if it can affect the moisture in the honey once it is capped.
The indoor bees need a source of water to be able to dilute the stored/capped honey to a level that they can use - just like bees outdoors do.

If the air in the shed is so dry that there is no condensation available on any hive surface, where are the bees going to get their water? As Ian already noted in post #41, offering the bees bottled water is one option.

But managing the humidity so that the air is not so dry, and condensation is available to the bees, seems to be Ian's goal. :)
 
#56 ·
But managing the humidity so that the air is not so dry, and condensation is available to the bees, seems to be Ian's goal. :)

Then I am thinking to evenly distribute the 55 gal barrels all over the w/s to increase the humidity thru out.
Run a fogger inside these barrel to vaporize the water. Of course, if the temp. is too cold to form ice then each
barrel must be converted to house a small water heater. You think this will help with the increase in humidity?
An alternative is to run the warm air vaporizer units in there. Might have to section off the w/h that is too big to prevent the moisture
loss.
 
#59 ·
I found where the light was getting in. It was in the door. Where the two doors came together I had to figure out an alternative for weather stripping at the bottom of where the doors come together. I folded over tar paper and nailed it down. It clearly wasn't working as that is where the light was coming in. I'll have to go buy more and it'll be pitch black.
 
#60 ·
I hope all is well with your bees B84...
I increased my fan time on the timer to 10 minutes every 4 hours, but we are having kind of a heat wave as you know and I wanted to increase the fresh air into the bee room to bring down the humidity and discovered my plug in timer that turns on/off my "bathroom fan (50cfm)" had stoped and the digital display was blank......I had programed a second timer I had to run it at 10 mins. per 2 hours and wanted to just change it out..
Anyway I think the timer plugged into an outlet in my garage and is exposed to outside temps had chilled the inturnal timming battery and it forgot what it was doing...
These timers are rated for indoor use and (I think) not made to work in outdoor temps.....MY second timer is a coupe of years newer and the battery is a little newer and I havn't had a problem with it yet, but just a reminder to check on the timmer to make sure it;s working as you intended...Mine is working fine now at +30 deg F but I will be watching as the temp drops as we go into January,,,,,May have to switch to a different type timmer....
PS. the cube is working great... :)

==McBee7==
 
#64 ·
Everything seems to be going well this far. The small sliver of light is coming from the door. That will be fixed soon. Fan, heater, and timers all functioning appropriately. Once door is properly sealed things will be perfect for the rest of the winter.
 
#65 ·
I fixed my timer problem by installing a mechanical timer from Menards for about $7 ....
But with this sudo spring---fog for several days with temps above 32 , High humidity---I didn't want the mold to start or the bees to become too active, I bought a DE-humidifier to keep down the humidity in the space around the outside of the hives, and reduced the ventilation (which was increasing the humidity) and now the space humidity is at about 60% instead of 75% but the temp is somewhat elevated 50 deg..
The forcast is for colder temps after monday so I just have to make it through tomarrow then the sudo spring should be over....At least for a few (i hope) months untill we hit the real spring in march/april/may...
Anyway, spring is only about 4 months away, LOL..:)

==McBee7==
 
#66 ·
Last night it was -30f and currently its at -21f and the bee shed is in the low 40s with about 50% humidity. :)
Im running my exhaust fan at 15 minutes every 2 hours. The forcast is for more negitive temps throughout the week so the winter test contenues,,,,,I swept out the dead bees this week and there were about a quarts of dead bees for 15 nucs....As the sweeping bumped a few of the hives the bees kind of came out and covered the entrance to about 3 inches up the front, which I was glad to see, as that tells me they're alive, as do the elevated humidity levels above outside readings ...





This puts 15 nucs into perspective in my 4 by 14 shed...

I need to really watch them as the temp and humidity rises.....inside and out....:)

==McBee7==
 
#67 ·
McBee
The about ideal temp. is 41degrees F. A couple either way is OK. I tend to stay just under.
Stay out of there during day light. Keep it as dark as possible, pitch dark and no moon.
After you were in there and disturbed them there are most likely more dead bees on the floor than you swept out. When they come out they don't get back in when it is again dark. Leave the door shut, if you do need to go in there do it at night with a red lens on your light.Your air exchange is more than adequit. I would run the fan even a little less now that it is winter. You may get them too dry, needs to be 40% or better
When spring does finally come for real get them outside just as soon as you can and immediatly put feed on them both syrup and pollen.
DON'T KILL THEM WITH KINDNESS!
gladiolus
 
#68 ·
Just another update. Bees doing well. I wanted to pop the tops to see how their mountain camp sugar was doing. From what I can see they haven't eaten much. Each hive is still alive. I will leave them alone until February and check sugar again. So far these bees are ahead of my bees from previous years. Just a couple of questions.

1. What temps do I move out?

2. My previous years my bees would sometimes walk out of the upper entrance poop and go back in. Whenever I have been in the shed I have seen a few bees at the upper entrance. I see no feces yet, but will they do the same in the dark?

So far I am pretty pumped. In my last two years sometime in the next couple of weeks I would be struggling to keep my bees alive, but at this point they haven't even broken through their sugar. No December losses either. There always seems to be that one hive that goes in December.
 
#69 ·
Glad to hear your bees are doing well...I want to look under the covers on mine but I just keep telling myself they were plenty heavy when I put them in and they're fine...Plus to look under the cover of one I might disturb the next one to it.
I've also considered taking the one closest to the door outside and inspect it and maybe leave it outside but winterize it for a couple more months now that the worst part of winter is over...
I've also been wondering if I should "harden them off" like you do with plants in a green house before you put the plants outside in the spring.....First turn down (or off) the heat in the building so the hive temps track with the outside temps before setting them outside. then on a nice day set them out for a cleansing flight, maybe in march and start feeding them to build them up (If you can push carnies to start earlier)...Maybe I think to much LOL ...:)
Temps today were near 40 and tomarrow will be about the same...Long term forcast for February looks like day and nitetime temps below freezing into march....It's the 40 degree days that make me antsy....
Good Luck

==McBee7==
 
#70 ·
1. I don't look at the inside hive temps. But at the consistent high in the
60s outside with the STABLE weather pattern. No use if one day
at 60s and the next at below 40s. So keep them in there for
as long as you can. A test nuc hive as a guinea pig outside
will do to see what they bring in at the Spring time.

2. Oh well, when you needed to go you need to go!
Doesn't matter if in the dark or light. Jk.
 
#72 ·
Bush 84
Building looks like it should work. You may want to line the inside just to protect the insulation.I don't see your fresh air intake but you have said it is there.Stay out in the daylight! This winter so far is tougher to control the temp. #0 plus today and this is the coldest for about 2 weeks. be sure the fans are working and keep it cool. Be sure the thermostat on the heater is working properly.Stay out during daylight or you will have a lot of bees on the floor.
 
#73 ·
That looks good Bush84 and it should work.
The skin on the outside of my door is also larger than the frame, to keep out the light and stop drafts, and on cold days I have frost that collects along the edges, as the exhaust fan pressureizes the room and vents air where it can, which is along the edges of the door. I also have a circulating fan in the room, which is just a small floor type fan that I hung from the ceiling so the air wouldn't stratify...Only 8 more weeks, more or less, and the snow will be gone and we'll forget about the shed and put the tiller and lawn mower and rakes back in and close it up again untill next fall ;)

==McBee7==
 
#74 ·
I have some questions. Imagine that people ran their systems exactly like Bush84 and McBee7, but had the hives arranged against the walls so that the bees had access to the outside through small holes. Would the benefit of the indoor wintering set up be negated by the ventilation provided by outside access?
It is not possible for someone on Ian's scale, and neither is it probably desirable as it is much colder up there. In this region it is cold, but not as cold as Canada most of the time. I speculate that if one kept the bees in a set-up like this - like a European bee shed - it might be possible to have the best of both worlds. Bees could ventilate themselves, and heat that would normally escape from the sides and top of the hive would warm the building and still moderate the temperatures as in the totally enclosed systems.
 
#75 ·
Oh ya I'd de doing that if I could. There has been work on that kinda project up here and it works extremely well but extremely finicky
It's not as straight forward as you may think.

Entrances blocked off during the cold of cold to conserve heat but access to open entrance inside to allow regular ventilation and the natural attrition during winter.

When temp in spring warms for flight, entrances to the outdoors were opened. The inside temps were maintained as the same as outdoor temps.
The neat part of this project, and I forget the exact details, I'll try to dig it up and provide the details, is they were heating the building during the night time lows to help keep the cluster loose and brooding. And as you can imagine it helped manage early brood rearing in early cold spring conditions.

There was a catch to it, like every good thing. One, the need of huge amounts of building face to have the bees lined up against. For me, 900 hives pointing out if the side would be nuts.
The other issue was that if the temp was not monitored properly,too warm on cool mornings, the bees would fly out and freeze,. But when the temp threshold was met, it worked well.

I was going to test out this method small scale few years back with smaller wintered hives but like everything else, this project got put on the back burner.
 
#76 ·
Adrian, I had actually left myself this possibility when I made the shed. If you look at the left wall in my building,I made the whole side removable from about 2 ft up from the bottom, to the top by the eaves. There are removable 4by8 sheets of chip board with stytofoam fastened to the inside, that can be totaly removed or tilted out if it became necessary to try to control temps in the spring if It turns into a runaway as far as temp control...I could build platforms 2 feet high against the outside wall and make or expose the entrances of the hives as the european Bee houses.....I'll see if I can post some pics of my shed while it was under construction to show more on this..
Stay warm all,,,It was -23F overnight, but spring is on the way... :)

==McBee7==
 
#77 ·
Here are the pics of my emergency temp control/bee excape in my shed....







I also wondered if the large overhanging roofs on the european bee houses was to protect the entrances from inclemint weather and also form a warm area (bubble) of air under the large roof to allow the bees an area for a cleansing flight when necessary in the spring..

==McBee7==
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top