Re: Intro as well as being treatment free
Happy Home:Originally Posted by Happy Home
Great update- glad to hear that you had such a successful season, and I enjoyed reading about how you were able to bless others with your surplus.
Reminds me of Proverbs 11:25...
Keep up the good work, and best of success to you in your overwintering preparations. How much stores do you estimate each hive has currently?
Re: Intro as well as being treatment free
Hi Litsinger,
It is really hard for me to judge the weight of the hive. I did pick up the back of the hive and it felt like thirty or forty pounds to me. but my hives are setting on two concrete blocks and the edge of the hive is not on the blocks so picking up the back of the hive is putting the weight somewhat toward the center of the hive.
I still estimate that there is probably 100 pounds or better total weight for each hive. I think there will be a little while longer yet for some of the blooming plants, although I really do not know where the bees are foraging at.
I need to get some mouse guards up before winter and i am really not sure what else I need to do.
I hope the bees do not suffer too badly by my lack of knowledge, I think that they have as good a chance of survival in a langstroth hive as they would have had if they had not been captured and left to fend for themselves.
the only difference is they might have had about 20 pounds more honey per hive to work with.
Thanks
Happy Home
Re: Intro as well as being treatment free
Happy Home:
You are a little North of me, but guys around here shoot for 60 - 80 pounds of stores going into winter- so I would expect it would be preferable for you to have at least this much on your hives. If you are not opposed to feeding, you might want to give each hive a gallon or two of 2:1 syrup if there is empty drawn comb in the hive.
While this weekend might not be your best bet, you might look for a warm, sunny and not too windy day here in the next week or so to do a final check on the heft of the colonies. If nothing else, you can simply break them down to the box level and see how heavy each box is to judge the stores in each box and then button them back up.
Otherwise, you might check to make sure the hives are slightly tilted forward from back to front to make sure any moisture which accumulates in the hive through the winter is able to run out.
Finally, the only other thing you might consider is whether you want to provide top ventilation to your colonies or not. There are different schools of thought on this, and I won't try to steer you in one direction or the other- but you might research this a bit and decide in your mind how you want to handle this.
Otherwise, if they are healthy, have plenty of food and are able to stay dry you're over halfway there in regards to overwintering.
Best of success to you in your winter preparations.
Russ
Re: Intro as well as being treatment free
Good evening all,
I just posted a profile picture of my bee hives, today after I put them on a little better looking stand, and weighed them. The taller hive with 1 deep box and three medium boxes weighs in at 141 pounds. And the shorter hive with 2 deep boxes and one medium weighed in at 112 pounds. This is total weight of the hives boxes bees wax, brood and stores. I weighed the with bathroom scales, by tilting the hive up and sliding the scales under the hive and tilting it back on the scales. The taller hive is the primary swarm that I caught this spring and the shorter one is a secondary swarm.
I think that they have enough stores to make it through the winter. I did raid just a little over half of the top super on each hive, about the 1st week in September. and both of the top supers were completely full of my very first honey, I was so proud of the bees.
Anyway since I really do not know what I am doing, my question is do you guys think that I have enough weight in the boxes to make it through the winter?
We should have a few more days that bees can fly before it gets cold enough to keep them in. and If I really need to do some extra feeding I should have at least some time to get some feeding in.
I do appreciate all the input I have received from everyone on this forum.
Happy Home
Re: Intro as well as being treatment free
Happy Home:
Good update. Have you had the chance to talk with any beekeepers in your neighborhood to determine what they shoot for regarding overwintering provisions? These folks could likely give you a pretty good idea of what you need with the typical colony in the typical year.
That said, there are several good past conversations here on Beesource regarding this very topic. Here are a couple:
https://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...oing-into-fall
https://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...ty-hive-weight
If you assume that your set-ups less stores weigh in the neighborhood of 70 pounds, this will give you a good idea as to what you have in terms of supplemental storage. So just going by rough rules-of-thumb I might suggest that your primary swarm is likely well-provisioned and the secondary swarm might be a little light.
The other thing to consider is making sure your stores are configured in such a way that the cluster can get to them. The following link gives this topic (and others) good treatment:
https://www.honeybeesuite.com/the-ul...ering-success/
Good luck in your final preps- I know it is cold and wet here... I imagine you all are dealing with this too.
Re: Intro as well as being treatment free
Happy Home:
Good update. Have you had the chance to talk with any beekeepers in your neighborhood to determine what they shoot for regarding overwintering provisions? These folks could likely give you a pretty good idea of what you need with the typical colony in the typical year.
That said, there are several good past conversations here on Beesource regarding this very topic. Here are a couple:
https://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...oing-into-fall
https://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...ty-hive-weight
If you assume that your set-ups less stores weigh in the neighborhood of 70 pounds, this will give you a good idea as to what you have in terms of supplemental storage. So just going by rough rules-of-thumb I might suggest that your primary swarm is likely well-provisioned and the secondary swarm might be a little light.
The other thing to consider is making sure your stores are configured in such a way that the cluster can get to them. The following link gives this topic (and others) good treatment:
https://www.honeybeesuite.com/the-ul...ering-success/
Good luck in your final preps- I know it is cold and wet here... I imagine you all are dealing with this too.
Re: Intro as well as being treatment free
Happy home
I used this as a general ideal during my first year.
https://extension2.missouri.edu/g7601
It mentions 40 to 60 lbs.
I have never had a swarm build up fast enough that I could take honey off first year and have always had to add food to be safe in oct.
It might be a little late here to be adding sugar water but it would probably not hurt to put a big old sugar block on for emergency.
Do those boxes have comb in them? I have never had a swarm fill two mediums in the year I caught them. I would say I average between 13 to 17 frames being drawn in the year caught. I don't feed much though until adding some bulk in early oct. If the comb is drawn out, great but if just foundation, I would remove the extra boxes.
I am pretty new too though and so take the above with a grain of salt.
Good luck
gww
zone 5b
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