overwintering

I need some advice. I lost my queen in one colony in September, so I combined with another hive. Both colonies were big an healthy. After the combine was successful, I removed the third box from the hive to overwinter in two deeps. They have 90lbs of honey to overwinter with, but now I'm...

Hello all, I'm looking at keeping a honey super on my double deep hive bodies, which I did last year for the first time and it worked well. But would like advice on procedure for feeding 2-1 sugar syrup to help pack the hives with the super on? or if I should remove it during feeding. I'd...

We are in SE Texas. New to beekeeping, have had 3 hives for a little over a 1/2 year now. We have not harvested yet, but have some full deeps and then some. Can you tell us... is there a formula, if you will, for knowing how much honey to leave for the hive overwinter so we don't need to feed Is...

All: I will apologize in advance if this question has been asked before- I couldn’t find anything in the archives quite like it, so here goes: Have you all observed any correlation between relative Spring swarm date and subsequent long-term overwintering success assuming one does not...

Can someone walk me through an overwintering protocol for nucs? I have 2 in 8-frame mediums and one in a 5-frame deep, new queens just beginning laying. Do I feed them up and try to expand them into 2 boxes? Or hold back and keep them small? We are at the end of the main nectar season here in...

I am from Iowa (zone 5a). For about 3 years we (wife and I) have been considering getting a hive or 2 for our backyard. I also know several farmers in our area who would let me keep hives on property corners near ditches with lots of flowers and clover etc. We decided to take the plunge when I...

I am in the midst of a beekeeping challenge: it’s September and the honeybees aren’t building in the honey super. For around the last month, I find small groups exploring the frames in the super but never a sign of building comb. I know that the honeybees will not move into the super until the...

Hi all, This is my second year in beekeeping. I think I made some mistakes last year, and I'd like to avoid them if possible this year :). I've a hive with 2 supers full of honey, and I'm not sure what is the best way to proceed at this point (please bear in mind that I live in Colorado so my...

I often see posts or articles suggesting a hive needs anywhere between 40 and 90 lbs of honey to make it thru the winter. Often these sources don't address the colony size. It wasn't until today I learned of a better metric, the Brood to Honey Ratio. The ratio was expressed in number of brood...

Hi! I'd love some advice on this: I bought a 5 frame (Langstroth) nuc two weeks ago. I moved the colony to a 2' long x 1' tall box and mixed in some top bars. The colony seems to be doing fairly well. As of last weekend the colony had 3+ brood frames and two drawn frames with some honey. I...

Hello, all. I'm a first year beekeeper in southeast Iowa. I bought a Russian pkg this year, installed it and took a mere 6 gal. I also recieved a swarm from a friend. Right in the middle between mean and dosile. Anyway, I was wondering if I missed anything. I've got ventilation holes in the...

The temp dropped from 70 to 52 in Brooklyn this week. I am a first year bee keeper, and I have been feeding syrup and just insulted the outside of the hive last week. My plan has been to leave the hive top feeder on over the winder and fill it with cedar chips or something similar and to put a...

I am going to switch to TF and one of the steps is to leave them honey, stop feeding sugar. I am from Czech Republic (middle Europe). But I am also reading a lot of warnings about dysentery (diarrhea) from dark (fall) honey. I tried to Google first and I have found few topics where people...

I built a couple nucs using the plan on the "build yourself" section of beesource. See pic below. My question is for anyone overwintering Nucs. I've seen a couple videos and listened to a lecture by both the Fat Bee Man and Larry Connor on this topic. My question is about ventilation. What are...

hey y'all. I've been at this now three years and I have had a routine problem with hives that I have queened with Carniolans. Simply put I have had only 1 out of 4 over winter and that 1 just died out in the early winter. I had another freeze over this last week. It seems to me that the...

I have witnessed two primary swarms during my first season (recaptured one). Yesterday evening I arrived home after work to find Hive #1 had again drained a quart of 1:1 sugar water. They have been pulling in a quart a day for about a week. An hour later I walked by to see and hear a small...

New beek here and im wondering about overwintering in double deeps. How many frames per deep should be filled with honey? should i arrange the frames with honey to the middle of the boxes before winter? What should the weight be in NC? My hive weighs 80 lbs now, but their not bringing in any...

So went up to do a quick knock test today and saw a large clump of dead bees under a hive. Note I said under, not in front of. There was no queen in the clump that I could see and when I do the knock test the sound is still really strong on the inside. Some of the bees were leg-locked hanging...

I am a first year beekeeper with a strong hive in a NYC community garden that has produced a second queen twice this summer. The first time, in the spring, I feared a swarm and with no equipment to enlarge the brood nest I killed the new queen. I was advised that this was a bad move. However...

For overwintering, does anyone have a maximum number of boxes you like getting down to before winter sets in? I know here weight is used and the round about figure is 60 lbs. This past Monday I was at a Beek meeting and I overheard an old timer stating now is the time to start removing supers...