[hmeadq]

Anouther stupid New-Bee Question...

Between an extremely cold start to the winter (when I was worried that it was too cold and they would all die) and now an extremely unusal warm spell (during which I have been worried that the warm temps will mean that the bees eat a lot more and they will run out of food as soon as it gets to cold for me to feed) I have been having bee dreams every night...

This week it is supposed to get above 50! (In northeast Ohio in Janurary that is strange.) I was wondering if I should take advantage of the weather and open the hive up and see how big my cluster is and how much food they have.

Should I? And if I do how big should the cluster be and how much honey should they have. Should I be feeding heavy now? Anything else I should be thinking about.

Thanks...

 

[Mitch]

It is a strange winer for Us here in Oh so far.As mentioned in another post there are many factors of why the bee will eat more winter stores but the main thing is if they start makeing brood.You cxna take a peak in and see how things look but inwould not do much else than look in>It is hard to say how big the cluster will be all bees are different.I plan on starting to feed about mid or end of feb.and this depends on the weather.

 

[Dan Williamson]

It was 50 degrees here in NW Indiana yesterday. All hives were flying. I did pop the tops of each hive to check stores. Don't start taking the boxes apart.

 

[victor schrager]

Almost 50 in upstate NY too - yesterday as I was watching a lot of bees came out all at once - instead of the few by few you usually see - two hours later when it was cold there were a hundred or so dead bees on the snow - much heavier litter than usual. Are they getting killed by the cold air, or are they the ones who were destined to be terminated anyway?
V. Schrager

 

[MountainCamp]

They are taking the dead bees out of the hive and dropping them in the snow.
Remember that there are 10's of thousands of bees in the average winter cluster. Bees emerged each day during the summer and bees will die each and every day during the winter.
They remove them when they can.

 

[Michael Bush]

You can peek inside. I usually don't go through them until spring. Feel how heavy they are and see if they need stores. Otherwise I'd leave them alone.

 

[cwyse]

Hi,

The temperature here in Connecticut is supposed to reach 50, maybe 60, this Friday. I'm a new beekeeper, and have been concerned that the bees didn't have enough food. I have a top bar hive. I dug them out of 30+ inches of snow last week - the hive was totally buried, and it stands about 4 feet high. I was worried the would suffocate. Anyway, I could hear them buzzing inside when I dug them out, so I know they're still alive.

Should I open up the hive on Friday, and maybe add a 2 to 1 sugar feed. I could put it inside the hive - but would they be able to use it after the temp drops again? If I pulled an empty honey comb and dipped it in sugar water, then put it next to the bees, would that be useful? Or would it just drip out? Not sure if adhesive properties of the sugar water would keep it in the cells.

What do I do for emergency feeding? How do I know if the bees have enough stored? Where do I place the feeder in the hive?

Thanks.
Chris

 

[Michael Bush]

If you want to know if they have food, heft the hive, don't open it. Make sure it's not frozen down..

 

[cwyse]

Thanks for the answer, Mike. I'll give it a try, but I don't have a reference weight to tell how full it is. It's also buried in 3 feet of snow, hopefully less by Friday. How much honey weight should there be? The hive only occupies about half the length of my four foot top bar hive.

 

[Noel V]

Here in London the temperature is hovering generally inbetween 34 to 50 degrees with bee's flying some days but not all.

What's the minimum average daily temperature when it starts to be not a problem for the bee's health to take apart and properly examine the hives and do splits?

 

[scdw43]

I don't go to moving frames to check the amount of brood until in the high 60's or low 70's. I have one yard that I am selecting for early build up this year. I will be opening them up on Friday to count frames of brood. This will help when selecting queens to graft from. Last year that same yard was selected for honey production and all hives that didn't make grade were moved and requeened.