Author Topic: Warm Dec. days  (Read 2203 times)

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Offline Mikey N.C.

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Warm Dec. days
« on: December 19, 2018, 01:54:25 pm »
We have had 4 days with temps. mid 50's and expecting more days. Neil mentioned this on another post. I was wondering the same thing. If winter bees are out flying and using energy,  will they live long enough to make it?

Offline Bakersdozen

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Re: Warm Dec. days
« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2018, 03:24:38 pm »
That's a good question, Mikey.  At other times of the year, honey bees might travel a lot farther in search of food and water.  Are they flying that far right now? I don't know.  Those foraging flights add wear and tear on their wings.  In the winter, they aren't exposed to pesticides.  That's a good thing. Depending on your location, some of those sunny, winter days the bees are just doing cleansing flights.  Our weather here has been in the low 50's this past week.  I saw several hives doing orientation flights.  We didn't have a fall.  Our weather went straight into winter, so some of those bees were probably taking their first flights.

Offline SoulflyUA

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Re: Warm Dec. days
« Reply #2 on: December 20, 2018, 04:06:54 pm »
Cleansing flights are very useful in winter. You can see that not all bees fly out, just those who need it.
But one minus in this situation - bees eat more.

Balcony beekeeping in Kiev, Ukraine.


Offline iddee

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Re: Warm Dec. days
« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2018, 04:12:08 pm »
If it takes 12 bees a lifetime to make a teaspoon of honey, and a hive can store many lbs. in a summer, just how much will one bee eat in one minute?
“Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”
― Shel Silverstein

Offline Bakersdozen

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Re: Warm Dec. days
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2018, 04:21:50 am »
That's a good question, Mikey.  At other times of the year, honey bees might travel a lot farther in search of food and water.  Are they flying that far right now? I don't know.  Those foraging flights add wear and tear on their wings. 
I re-read what I wrote and realized I made a generalized statement here.  In some parts of the country, the mild weather allows for year round foraging. Of course south of the equator is enjoying spring now.  This is World Wide Beekeeping, after all.   ;D

Offline Jacobs

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Re: Warm Dec. days
« Reply #5 on: December 22, 2018, 09:44:13 am »
Beekeeping is definitely local.  If you go to Weather Underground and look at monthly calendars for your location, it will give you some idea of what to TRY and plan for.  For Piedmont NC, we seldom have AVERAGE high temperatures lower than 48F and a large number of days average 50F, even during winter.  We get many days below this and periods of hard freezes.  Flying bees and no real forage means we have to actively monitor to prevent starvation--brood increasing after solstice and no major flow until around mid April most years.  I look for brood rearing to be on the increase, and I welcome it.  If I try and stimulate brood rearing, I need to keep it up.  If hives are following a normal cycle on their own here, February 1st marks the usual time for blooming of the red maple.  This is our first large natural pollen supply of the year and we usually see a ramping up of brood rearing (and starvation danger) then. 

Mikey NC,  I'm not sure about the significant plant life/trees in your forage areas, but I don't think your bee seasons would GENERALLY be more than a week or so ahead of mine at most.

Offline tecumseh

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Re: Warm Dec. days
« Reply #6 on: December 22, 2018, 03:55:24 pm »
in central Texas this time of year we will get a small number of flowers that bloom.  I do not know if the bees work these. Here (ie where I am at this given point in time in California) lots of things are blooming but I see few bees visiting the flowers.

As to Mickey's question given the short duration of flight I suspect it has little effect on their life.  You can however make a better argument that a worker bee's life is about miles flown and not length of time.   
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Offline Lburou

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Re: Warm Dec. days
« Reply #7 on: December 22, 2018, 09:49:12 pm »
Tec, I visited a beekeeper last week in San Mateo, CA.  His bees are working eucalyptus trees.  He says that dozens of bees can visit one bloom and haul all they can carry back to the hive -getting a full load from visiting one bloom.  Those trees are the cultivar planted indiscriminately 100 years ago and not in favor nowadays.   His bees are working other blooms as well.

I saw a dandelion blooming here this week along with several weeds and small native flowers here along the river (many brought in by recent flooding).  I don't see bees on them now. The timing of that dandelion bloom means absolutely nothing to me in managing my bees, yet dandelion bloom is mentioned as a signal for bee management in other parts of the country.  All beekeeping IS local!  :)

Mikey, I am not overly concerned with a few dead bees around the beehives in winter.  Bees die every day and are usually cleaned up and carried off in good flying weather.  :)
Lee_Burough

Offline CBT

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Re: Warm Dec. days
« Reply #8 on: December 24, 2018, 03:45:49 pm »
If there is a candy board with a pollen patty on it and a quilt board over it on every hive. Let em fly when they want. I’ll sleep better knowing I have done all I know to do.
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Offline Mikey N.C.

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Re: Warm Dec. days
« Reply #9 on: December 25, 2018, 09:19:56 am »
I'm using the 2" foam insulation board between tele. cover an inner cover. Small piece of screen over oblong hole on inner cover to keep bees from getting to foam.

Offline tecumseh

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Re: Warm Dec. days
« Reply #10 on: December 25, 2018, 10:40:59 am »
good point Lee about the dandelions < which my wife tells me are actually called cow thistles so there may be some difference in what we think of as dandelions in Central Texas from what they are in other places.. I think the same goes for golden rod...really I guess if there is an important message here it is that all things related to Biology have a larger variation to them than most of us truly understand.

As to you San Mateo beekeeper ask them if they Know 'Art the Beekeeper'? < quite a story teller and a fun person to hang with..

in my own experience... dead bees at this time of year is to be expected.... but how many is the real issue!

Offline Les

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Re: Warm Dec. days
« Reply #11 on: December 29, 2018, 03:42:25 pm »
This has been a weird winter in the Hudson Valley.  Temps are way off.....much warmer than usual.  Many days in
the 50’s and upper forties.  As a result the girls have been very active, taking lots of cleansing flights.  My assumption is they might be more active inside the hive too and consuming much more of their stores.  I have been feeding fondant much earlier than normal and they are consuming it rapidly.  Is my assumption correct?

Offline SoulflyUA

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Re: Warm Dec. days
« Reply #12 on: December 29, 2018, 10:05:01 pm »
This has been a weird winter in the Hudson Valley.  Temps are way off.....much warmer than usual.  Many days in
the 50’s and upper forties.  As a result the girls have been very active, taking lots of cleansing flights.  My assumption is they might be more active inside the hive too and consuming much more of their stores.  I have been feeding fondant much earlier than normal and they are consuming it rapidly.  Is my assumption correct?
Yes, you are right.

Balcony beekeeping in Kiev, Ukraine.


Offline tecumseh

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Re: Warm Dec. days
« Reply #13 on: December 31, 2018, 06:41:39 am »
Every year in Texas is a bit weird.  Nothing you could point to as normal or average and I guess if you believe in global warming the variation will get wider.  This year we have had a very very wet fall and early winter.  Enough so that I have been unable to check most of my yards for stores and therefore those with depleted pantries likely will die.  Not much I can do about that without the constant problem of getting stuck < the soil type here is such that most of the time the ground is a bit like a brick but when saturated becomes a bottomless bog... and a 4 wheel drive only gets you a deeper hole.