Is it wise to winterize nucs in a shed or a garage? The entrance will be screened so they don't wander out in the garage and they will be put outside during warm spell to cleanse.
I would NOT winter your bees in a garage! Open door garden shed OK for shelter from the wind, rain, and snow. The set up Ian has in Manitoba when the temp gets to sub sub zero I would have set up like that. darkness proper venting and temp VERY important in a setup up like that. The area of northern BC back in the 60 70s when there is 20 feet of snow on the ground in Jan and Feb we use to put the hive under large open air snow sheds. The temp got down to -20 -30 for stretches of Jan and Feb we would wrap hive with #15 and #20 pound felt building paper for wind breaks. The biggest thing you NEED to vent the hives both TOP and Bottom The bees die from moisture and Co2 gas build up. of the 20 or so hives that we had we only lost is 3-4 (staved out in mid March) Last year in the lower mainland in BC I have wintered bees under my open sun deck with no problems again you need to vent upper and lower in the hive because of the high moisture we have out here in the Pacific North West (the hives are not wrapped not too cold)
That's intresting- I wrapped all my hives and double Nucs. Temps ranged from mid 70s to - 28 below zero. Wintered 100% of the hives and nucs. Winds of 75 mph are not uncommon. I lost one Overwintered Nuc in mid-May after it was unwrapped. I use both upper and lower entrances for ventilation. The is a HUGE difference in your average garage and Ian's facility that is designed for overwintering bees indoors.
>Is there any benefit to just moving hives into an unheated garage to keep them out of the wind in the winter?
Yes. (see post 9) IMO a small cluster can not keep warm when it's 20 deg or less. Around here 5 frame deep hives and less have low winter survival. 7 and 8 frame hives can make it but mortality rate still too high for me.
Several people have asked so I will try to explain it again and add some details that were left off in the original posts;
Small late swarms (not weak hives) that did not have time or a nectar flow (I probably should have fed more) to expand to a winter survival size by Dec. I screened them and moved them in an attached unheated garage (average 45-50 deg) when it was forecasted low 20s moved them in (sometimes it dipped to 17, that's when I lost the smallest). Whenever it was forecasted to be 45 for 2 or more days I moved them out and unscreened. I fed syrup poured just a little on the inner cover and sugar block pieces when they were garaged. Covering the garage windows did not seem to matter some light still managed to come in, and some bees would still get all worked up when temps got 50 deg and it was sunny, but calmed back down when it got dark. Using my truck to load, unload and drive them to the outside location made it more work than it needed to be and because of that kept them garaged more. I would liked to have trailered them in and out. Or better yet set them facing the outside and just open the garage door when it was warm and close it when it was cold.
This does work very well for a small number of hives for a hobbyist. A few things to keep in mind, the hives should have plenty of empty room inside with a few empty frames, don't try this with a 5 frame nuc packed with 5 frames bees you will cook them, move them to a 10 frame first. My 7 and 8 frame hives were the biggest of the ones I garage they had 2 or 3 empty frame inside giving them room to move around and not overheat. The first year I had 10 out of 11 survive to become strong productive hives, and again last year I had 12 out of 14 survive. At least 80% of these small late swarms would not have made it outside in our winter. So when everyone is scrambling in a panic to try to feed to get to size I just sit back and wait until the first of the 20 deg days come.
Another benefit (besides keeping them alive) they were able to take full advantage of early brooding with no chilled brood. My weakest cluster coming out of winter with no more than 2 frames of bees turned into a powerhouse that drew and filled 2 deep packed with bees and 2 supers of honey.
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