Extreme winter survival

[tefer2]

he said the sugar bricks were inverted already, one less step for them to use them.

[Bakersdozen]

My old bee mentor also taught us a tip on getting them ready.
When you have to feed syrup in the fall.
You want to give them a bunch all at once. Not just a small feeder over days and days.
You want them to have so much coming in it creates a storing frenzy. Like a strong flow.
The storing is done quickly and they can spend the rest of their time drying it down and capping.

At Thanksgiving, add your candy bricks for the spring time.
Italian looking bees get two 5lb bricks. Carniolan looking get one 5lb brick.
In March, check to see if Italians have any left.
Check Carniolans to see if they have even touched it.

Thanks for the 'pearls of wisdom'.

[riverbee]

ray~
"This winter I had 2-three deep hives the way U of Minn suggests"

from ray's original post, the wintering method that he is speaking of, is keeping bees in 3 deeps. part of the purpose/management of the system is to ensure young queens and a healthy population of bees going into winter, with adequate honey stores, so that the need to add a spacer or any feed is unnecessary, and wintering success is increased.

from the university of minnesota:
Beekeeping in Northern Climates

the original management of this system was developed by Dr. Basil Furgala, and is referred to as the "horizontal two-queen system".  through additional research by Dr. Marla Spivak, Gary Rueter, they kept his basic management principles of building a colony and overwintering in 3 deeps, and it is not just about piling boxes on top of one another, and does require some intensive management.

in short, the goal is with a package of bees/or a divide, to be built to a strong colony with a young queen into 3 deeps the first year and for wintering.
in the spring of the 2nd year, that colony is divided, leaving the original queen ( 1 yr old, surviving the winter) in 2 deeps which is termed the 'parent colony'.  this will be your honey producer.  the 3rd deep, which is the divide to be queened with a young queen, will once again be allowed to build to 3 deeps that season.  in late summer of the 2nd year the honey is harvested from your parent colony and is supposed to be depopulated.  your divide, which should be in 3 deeps by fall will winter and the process above is repeated; it will be the parent colony, which will be divided, and the honey producer. the purpose is that these divides have young queens in them, and not over 2 years old, and the wintered colonies will a have a queen one year old.

there is a lot more to it than this, but basically young queens, strong populations, queen acceptance problems are minimized, swarming problems minimized, and honey production is enhanced. and also wintering success.

i tried this method for several years, lots of intensive management in the spring and fall. these boxes are heavy.  i did not depopulate the parent colony. my success rate?  it worked in good nectar years, or when i didn't experience queen problems, but like ray there was a winter or two where the bees cold starved.  some keeps here keep bees in three deeps, but most do not really follow the method and will lose a percentage of their colonies.  i went back to double deeps....

[LazyBkpr]

Pretty sure Marla has a video on this, been a while since I saw it. If i come across it I will post the link.
   Using all mediums, I am seriously considering leaving them FOUR mediums instead of three.
   I can HOPE we don't EVER have another winter like this again, but my tried and true method of three mediums, which has always worked in the past failed solidly this year. Honey reserves GONE by the end of February. They could sure use a box of honey above them right now.
   I have been too spoiled by mild winters. Seems that we are returning to winters as I knew them when I was young.

[riverbee]

yes, she does lazy, if you click on the link in my post, you can purchase it from the u of m or other bee suppliers, etc.

it can't hurt lazy to use 4 mediums, instead of three. experiment next year?

[Perry]

What has worked for us the last few years.
Do something to knock the mites down in fall.
Hives full on stores before winter sets in.
Black tar paper wraps with 2 inch polystyrene on top of inner cover.
Inner cover with front vent hole, notch down.
2 inch spacer on top box under inner cover, for emergency candy feeding.

That is pretty much exactly what I do.

Me too.
Sounds like the three of us got seperated at birth!
Of course, I'm the good lookin one, Lazy, well, he's the handy one, and tefer, well we're still tryin to figure him out. 

[tefer2]

I think the "The Three Amigo's", are zeroing in on some methods that may really work in our colder climates. Cruising the bee forums and reading everything you can get your hands on helps.
While the old folks didn't have the diseases that we have today, 30+ years of beekeeping
knowledge is very useful information. I just try to listen to them and apply their methods to the present day.

[robo]

Would you extreme Northern beeks care to divulge some of your honeybee survival secrets?

Here is what works for me.   I don't think you can rule out genetics though.  All my bees come from local acclimatized survivor stock.

• No upper ventilation (allows heat loss)
• Highest insulated value on top (force condensation on walls)
• Limit the hive volume to a minimum (I use polystyrene hive bodies which allow me to knock them down to one deep,  they use about 30%+ less stores in polystyrene,  general rule in my area is 2 (wooden) deeps of honey for the winter)
• Vent/drain holes in bottom board (allows fresh air to circulate into the hive)
• I also run a 2" insulated shim on top in case I need to feed which is very rare (don't know if it aids in the survival, but you can see they like the space to cluster even when there is plenty of stores in the comb)
  

Some of my hives in the early spring

[tefer2]

Lazy, I have some 4 medium hives in the mix this winter.
I don't have a survival count cause they're buried in a snow drift in the woods.
They are stand alone with a candy brick on top.
I've wanted to try some to see if they were any better than the 3 deep experiment.
The deeps did no better adding another box, and still perished.
I will report back in the spring after we can get over there.
Regards, Amigo#3

[tefer2]

Rob, for the life of me I can't figure how you make those nucs work.
Every time I don't have a top entrance they end up a dead soggy mess.
I've had Beemax hives in the past and couldn't make them work worth a darn.
You must have four 1 inch holes drilled into the bottoms or some other trick. 
Maybe your lids don't fit worth a crap? 

[robo]

Rob, for the life of me I can't figure how you make those nucs work.
Every time I don't have a top entrance they end up a dead soggy mess.
I've had Beemax hives in the past and couldn't make them work worth a darn.
You must have four 1 inch holes drilled into the bottoms or some other trick. 
Maybe your lids don't fit worth a crap? 

My BeeMax nucs have a 1/4" drain hole in the front corner and I tilt them forward.  Before I did this I would find an 1" of water in the bottom of them.  What I don't understand is you see these beekeepers in Canada that overwinter nucs and feed them by pumping syrup through the entrance so they obviously have no drain holes.



Most of my 10 frame BeeMax hives (pictured in previous post)  have two  3/4" vent holes in the bottom board.  Though I have been experimenting with a new vertical entrance bottom board that I designed and it has been working well



I have a 2" foil-back insulation board shim on the BeeMax box and cover that with a 2" foil-backed insulation board cover.  No upper ventilation holes.



Most just have a piece of coroplast on top of the insulation board and no telescopic cover.

[tefer2]

I think Michael Bush used some wood hives that he pours syrup into the bottoms to feed too.
That's amazing! I can sure believe the 1 inch of liquid in the bottom with no drain hole.
I'll have to try a few of those next winter and see if I can pull it off too.
I know everything I did with nucs this winter was wrong.
I have 4 different configurations this winter, and hardly any are working out for us. Thanks

[LazyBkpr]

Dont feel bad Tefer. At the meeting last night it seemed as if everyone was having a difficult time. After hearing of their losses at this point I didn't want to speak up for fear of jinxing myself.  Seems winter is going to go down fighting, and until I have pollen and at least syrup going into my hives I can't count them as survivors. One of the commercial beekeepers reported a 70% loss..  from hearing him talk before I have to guess thats a little over 800 hives dead...

[Jen]

Hi Lazy- Yikes! That is bad bad news! so sorry for all you guys. And here I post pics of my bees going nuts! :\ :\ :\

[LazyBkpr]

You post away Jen..  seeing your bees gives hope. 
   I like to think I am having better luck because the bees I have are Carniolan and feral/survivors..   WOn't know a final score for a couple of weeks according to the weather man..
   Who put HIM in charge anyhow?  Can we vote him out and hire a weather man that reports balmy temps and sunshine?

[Jen]

Well if it weren't for all of you guys, my hive might not have made it this far either. I am humbly grateful. Sending over Big Good Weather Mojo for all. But remember to, that we here in Cali are on the opposite side of the water spectrum. We're gonna be in trouble this summer...

[Perry]

Very interesting set up Rob. It never occurred to me to use the insulation itself as a shim, great idea. Do you use some sort of foam glue to glue the corners together?
I'm like tefer, any hives that don't have upper vents turn soggy. Interesting.

[riverbee]

robo~
"I also run a 2" insulated shim on top in case I need to feed which is very rare (don't know if it aids in the survival, but you can see they like the space to cluster even when there is plenty of stores in the comb)"

i have a similiar setup, 2" insulation board, what is your 2"sugar shim insulated with robo? mine aren't insulated.  i rarely have to feed in the winter, but will throw on a 2" shim on a lighter hive, and i find the same thing, the bees seem to like the extra space to cluster.

[robo]

Very interesting set up Rob. It never occurred to me to use the insulation itself as a shim, great idea. Do you use some sort of foam glue to glue the corners together?
I'm like tefer, any hives that don't have upper vents turn soggy. Interesting.

The ones in the pictures above are made from foil backed insulation board (fiberglass strands) and are taped together with foil duct tape.   I believe insulation is only part of the puzzle to control moisture without allowing heat to escape.   I believe volume also plays a roll.   The less unoccupied space the better.  By using polystyrene hives, I can cut them down to one deep.  The combination of the well insulated hive AND the fact that no heat is being lost through ventilation greatly reduces the consumption of stores and requirement for 2 deeps.    Unoccupied space is just a heat drain on the cluster, the more there is the more drain.

I have also made some insulation shims out of blue rigid Styrofoam insulation for my beemax nucs.   I used coroplast on the outside and inside to protect them.  I used hot glue to assemble and they held up OK.  After doing some research, the next ones will be made with CA glue and "flashing" the corroplast with a propane torch before applying.
 

robo~
"I also run a 2" insulated shim on top in case I need to feed which is very rare (don't know if it aids in the survival, but you can see they like the space to cluster even when there is plenty of stores in the comb)"

i have a similiar setup, 2" insulation board, what is your 2"sugar shim insulated with robo? mine aren't insulated.  i rarely have to feed in the winter, but will throw on a 2" shim on a lighter hive, and i find the same thing, the bees seem to like the extra space to cluster.

The shims are made from 2" foil backed insulation board.   I rarely ever need to feed either,  but it is a whole lot easy to do if a shim is in place already

[robo]

Rob, for the life of me I can't figure how you make those nucs work.

So the weather got up to 40 today so I took a look into the handful of nucs I have in my yard and took some pictures of the 1" shims I use on the Beemax nucs.  All are still alive and seem well.







Rob...