Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => General Beekeeping => Topic started by: gtrr4 on April 20, 2015, 08:20:35 pm
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I know some of you are still waiting for the snow to melt and some of us like myself are waiting for the first big bloom. This week we have four nights that will be down to freezing. I am wondering how will the brood fair through these nights. My three hives all have 5-6 frames of brood at different stages. I am wanting to know what the experienced beeks knowledge is on this.
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The coldest we are expecting is ONE night at 34 degrees.. I hope it doesnt get much colder than predicted.. about six nights total below 40 degrees, then its supposed to start warming back up...
Experience tells me that I might lose some brood of the cluster contracts, but with it being 60 degrees during the day I am hoping the bees can keep up with the temps inside.
I also have multiple frames of brood going on in most of my hives. we have a major bloom in progress. dandelions everywhere. cherry trees, ornamental pear etc, etc... if it freezes, all but the dandelions will end overnight.. My concern is with the flow rather than the brood. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
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It's nature, and we can't do much about it. There may be some loss of brood, but even so they will rebound.
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you may lose some brood and some bees trying to cover the brood. my main concern would be that the bees have the stores to get through crazy weather when we can't feed syrup because of the cold. if they have the stores, they will do alright. we have two weeks (predicted of very cold weather) in now, and coming up. the brood and bees covering the brood are always at loss in cold snaps, just as long as i don't lose an entire colony of bees to starvation this late, and it can happen.
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In my neck of the woods, the bees managed to get into the Red Maples and Willow pollen. I have been feeding deadout honey, so I'm not worried about starvation. I have 5 packages coming Friday, won't be the first time I've hived packages in cold weather.
(https://worldwidebeekeeping.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs12.postimg.cc%2Fz6fec2qix%2F41614snow_003.jpg&hash=d6cdca89777266ba5f85865c943ee4a011281a72) (http://postimg.cc/image/z6fec2qix/)
The picture is from April 16 of last year.
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Packages arrived up here the last week or two as well. The ones from New Zealand are hived really easily because of the tubes they arrive in. The ones from Australia come in the old style wooden cages and they get shook up a lot during hiving. If you can get the majority of the bees in the hive quickly, even if it's cold, it will minimize the drifting that occurs if they get all shook up and it's warmer.
(https://worldwidebeekeeping.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs17.postimg.cc%2Fhu0ec96rv%2Fimg_tubes_2.jpg&hash=3b87f4aea437a9415a5b6d362199207da90b99aa) (http://postimg.cc/image/hu0ec96rv/)
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Hoping that the weather breaks next week as bees will be arriving next Friday or Saturday.
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My bees are off to a good start. All six hives have at least 50 lbs of honey stored so far. My guess they robbed out the dead hives from the commercial guy cross the street. Last night temps went down to 27 degrees with 3 inches of snow and more to come tonight with lows down to 25 degrees. My bees have enough honey now to weather out this cold front. I hope its the last of it for awhile.