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So It's mid February, and i want to check my hives. I am worried about deaths due to starvation or them not finding their feed
Last fall was a crazy fall and saw a flow to the end of September, even into October on Alfalfa. The hives, 85-90%, were crazy heavy to move. Two strong farm men had a hard time lifting them. I have never wintered on honey, and since they hardly took any feed in, and they did not take in the fumagilan B, and since i hear of hives dieing on this forum, I am worried and want to take a peek, drop some feed on them. Right now the temps are -5 to -9 Celcius, in the daytime and -16 to -19 Celcius night time temps.
We checked on the bees ealry to mid january just by listening to the hives. All was ok...so far...
In the last two previous winters I have attempted to:
2008---place syrup on in 2.5 gallon pails. It was what was left over from the fall feeding. At the time 90% live rate. However, I put the feed on and the vaccum did not hold, so the feed leaked on the bees. Had atleast a 45% death loss due to chilled wet bees
2009 ---- thought to do something differet and added pollen pattied to the top of the hives where the bees were late february early March during a nice warm snap. However the inner lids with the pollen did not create a tight seal and temperatures dropped to way below normal for almost a month and 35% of the bees died because the windchill and the just plain cold trying to rear brood.
2010---no idea what i am going to do, thought of candy boards, thought of pollen patties both ideas with formic rings...since i have them on hand.... so that there would be a seal to keep the heat in.
Or do nothing for another couple of weeks...
Itchy fingers...
ideas?
Last fall was a crazy fall and saw a flow to the end of September, even into October on Alfalfa. The hives, 85-90%, were crazy heavy to move. Two strong farm men had a hard time lifting them. I have never wintered on honey, and since they hardly took any feed in, and they did not take in the fumagilan B, and since i hear of hives dieing on this forum, I am worried and want to take a peek, drop some feed on them. Right now the temps are -5 to -9 Celcius, in the daytime and -16 to -19 Celcius night time temps.
We checked on the bees ealry to mid january just by listening to the hives. All was ok...so far...
In the last two previous winters I have attempted to:
2008---place syrup on in 2.5 gallon pails. It was what was left over from the fall feeding. At the time 90% live rate. However, I put the feed on and the vaccum did not hold, so the feed leaked on the bees. Had atleast a 45% death loss due to chilled wet bees
2009 ---- thought to do something differet and added pollen pattied to the top of the hives where the bees were late february early March during a nice warm snap. However the inner lids with the pollen did not create a tight seal and temperatures dropped to way below normal for almost a month and 35% of the bees died because the windchill and the just plain cold trying to rear brood.
2010---no idea what i am going to do, thought of candy boards, thought of pollen patties both ideas with formic rings...since i have them on hand.... so that there would be a seal to keep the heat in.
Or do nothing for another couple of weeks...
Itchy fingers...
ideas?