I have not been able to tell any difference. I don't treat my bees with any chemical so some of my bees are wintering on brood combs that are 10 years old and black as coal.

 

a queen will stubbornly move into a fresh box of comb, but they always do.

 

The fact that he's retired should be enough to arouse suspicion.

Disregard his advice, lest it lead to your own retirement.

If it was working for him, he'd still be working bees.

For wisdom, I'd refer you to the Treatment Free forum, for advice from the many successful first year treatment free beekeepers.

 

For wisdom, I'd refer you to the Treatment Free forum, for advice from the many successful first year treatment free beekeepers.

Is that subtle humour or a serious suggestion?

 

Metropropolis, he retired, he didn't go broke. All beekeeping is local, but in my conditions bees winter as well on new comb as they do on old.

 

since Metropropolis is from the same area of canada, there is that probability that he knows the beek involved with the diary.

 

never had a problem wintering on new comb, I would suspect if someone had problems wintering on new comb, it would be a problem caused by it being a new hive, new queen, etc. A commercial beek with many hives may not catch the problems.

 

Other than color, what would be the difference?
What was his reasoning for his conclusion?

 

Not saying the op's theory is true, but I've seen colonies not expand their broodnest in the spring when on light comb. Also nucs not expanding up onto empty light combs when others with empty dark comb above move right up. I've also seen a colonies refusing to expand across a light comb placed in the center of the broodnest.

So light comb can effect a colony's expansion...not sure if that's what the retired beekeeper is seeing.


>>The fact that he's retired should be enough to arouse suspicion.
>>Disregard his advice, lest it lead to your own retirement.

Every day we get a little bit older and a little bit wiser. We can all benefit from the retired folks that been there before us.

 

How would swarms make it if the hive couldn't winter on new comb?

 

"How would swarms make it"

Most swarms don't "make it".



I doubt if the retired beekeeper was a proponent of Black Body Radiation....

 

Not that I have noticed. If you have newly drawn comb what choice does one have? New light comb will become old dark comb over time. I don't worry about such things. Things I can't do anything about anyway.

 

The idea certainly isn't a new one, I posted this snippet from Manley's 1946 book 'Honey Farming' on another thread (http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...m/forums/showthread.php?277401-Comb-rotation-what-do-you-do&p=886450#post886450) back at the start of the year:

"There is just one other point I would like to make. Bees always winter better on old combs than new, and I think it matters not at all how old the combs are so long as they are in good condition otherwise. Really good old combs are one of the greatest assets a bee farmer can have. Some people have been foolish enough to advise the regular and systematic scrapping of brood-combs to the extent of 20 per cent per annum, and in so far as good worker combs are concerned, this is just silly advice. My counsel is, get rid of combs that have too many drone cells or are otherwise imperfect, but hang on tight to all others. The older they are the better bees will do on them. This is not theory, or some cracked idea of my own, but a fact which any intelligent beekeeper can prove for himself in a very short time."

 

One obstical that bees will have with old comb currently to which they did not encounter 20 years ago is pesticide residue and back ground viral and nosema levels in the old wax

 

Totally agreed, just mentioning that there's 'history' to the claim.

 

> There is only one beekeeper I know of in all of Canada w/ a "Diary" prominently available on the internet.

Hmmm.

Some might consider Beesource's own Ian a Canadian beekeeper. :lookout: And Ian has a beekeeping blog that many would consider a public version of a diary.



Many (but not all) of Ian's Beesource posts have a signature that has a link to his blog.

 

Does anyone look at that? Ha ha
Diary, daily archive of personal events
Blog, continual archive of specific events
Mine is more so a Blog

 

Can someone show us what reportedly was said or written. Often there is more to what was said than what we know from the OP.

 

I for one agree with the claim aswell. You don't have to be an experienced beekeeper to see that relationship when wintering here. Funny how that is. I believe it has something to do with comb ridgidity and heat retention. New comb is very brittle in cold weather and does not absorb moisture the same as darker well worked brood comb does

Whoops , does this mean I'm now on the line for retirement ?!

 

Allen was retired from commercial honey production but still keeps around 60 hives (I think) as a hobby and was advertising the sale of nucs this past spring.
I have also heard that overwintering on darker comb was better.

 

Here is a University site with a similar statement as to Vance's original comment:

Bees winter best on combs that have been used for brood rearing. If possible, do not winter bees on all new honey combs, and be sure that any frames of foundation are replaced with drawn comb. Remove the excluder and all empty, supers. If you have no other place to store empty combs, you can leave them on the hive above an inner cover with the center hole open. However, it is better to store combs where they cannot be damaged or blown over by the wind. See page 108 for information on protecting stored combs.


http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/vista/html_pubs/BEEKEEP/CHAPT5/chapt5.html

The link is to Illinois University - College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.

Here is a link to the entire series of beekeeping papers from IU, titled - "Beekeeping in the Midwest"
http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/vista/abstracts/abeekeep.html
The College of ACES

 

Mr Dick has stated the same thing about new comb on bee-l, he also gave a reason(that I can't remember exactly), and I did a search but can find where he discussed it, but can't find what his reason was, I think Ian was right something about retaining heat because the old comb has all the old mummies, and heavier so it retains heat, but can't find a link to it.

 

How many do you think make it Brian? Seems to me that most would have to make it or eventually, just by statistics, bees would naturally go extinct. But, a lot of the swarms which happen don't make it to the next Spring.

 

a lot of the swarms which happen don't make it to the next Spring.

A lot of everything don't make it to the next spring. That is called natural selection. The bee that we want could go extinct but the bee that nature intended to be will not without our help.

 

Will not go extinct w/out our help?

 

I don't know, is it?

 

Oh

 

....

 

I wouldn't think there was a huge difference in wintering, but I do know from personal experience that the bees greatly prefer old black comb for establishing a hive. In fact, I had one swarm that started to move from the nuc box I had put them in into a deadout I was taking apart, they wanted all that previous year's comb over the bare foundation. And if you put an old comb in a box with a package, the queen will lay it full before the bees will do anything with foundation or freshly drawn comb.

In the modern age where we put tons of poisons all over everything, old comb may not be a read advantage for bees due to residue issues, but in evolutionary terms it's the best thing going. Solid, no effort pre-made housing is vastly better than making wax before being able to raise brood!

Peter

 

Thanks everyone it has been a nice discussion and I got some insight on why it would make a difference. This is important to me. It is -12 and that is 7 degrees above the forecasted high. Fortunately it is warming up in a few days.

 

I need to change my reply, I was using the term new comb to mean comb drawn the summer before being used for wintering. Usually the comb will have been used for several brood cycles before going into winter. I can not ever remember using freshly drawn comb, or comb not ever used for brood to winter on.