rats scenario on beekeeping

[Riverrat]

Lets see if we can figure this one out.  Years ago I did hypothetical stories on a beekeeping situation to see if we could figure out how to fix. Lets give it a shot.


You're out in your bee yard. Its late fall, a cold front moved in, the temps dropped from the seasonal average of 50 deg. to 20 and the snow is flying.  You have 7 hives with honey supers on and you need to harvest the honey.  you don't want to crack the hives open but you're leaving for a vacation and it needs pulled.  You also have several hives that have well over enough stores to overwinter with plenty to spare,  but you have a couple that are light.  feeding syrup is out of the question and you don't have sugar cakes and don't want to use the mountain camp method.  What you going to do to solve this situation in the bee yard on this cold day.  Ready set go!!!!!!!

[neillsayers]

1) Log into WWB and ask for advice!

Seriously, I don't know so I'm tagging in to sit and listen.

[Some Day]

The 7 hives with honey I would leave on the hives until spring and harvest then.

The weak hives I would place a queen excluder over the strong hives, cover with newspaper and place the weak hives on top of the newspaper an QE.  The two hives will eat through newspaper and and then share stores and warm.

In the spring I would separate the hives.

[apisbees]

OH OH OH I Know but I will give others a chance to ponder and respond to this first. Thanks for bringing this back RiverRat

[neillsayers]

I'm thinking the bees in the combined hives would abandon their queen and join the stronger hive below, making it one hive.

[Riverrat]

This is going to be fun We have a norther keep chime in and bet he has dealt with this scenario in the past
 

[Riverrat]

Also key is the temp being at 20 actually gives you more options.  Correct Apis?

[Mikey N.C.]

I'd think that if you didn't get sugar on top for emergency feed . It's your situation to deal with. And you learned a good lesson.

[Riverrat]

I'd think that if you didn't get sugar on top for emergency feed . It's your situation to deal with. And you learned a good lesson.

 

at 20 degrees the bees wouldnt be able to break cluster to get to the emergency feed IMO

[Mikey N.C.]

Newspaper on top bars and pour dry sugaf? Or move boxes together for heat transfer?

[CBT]

Pull the honey if not part of the cluster, add a candy board with pollen patty and quilt board to all, sort it out in the spring. Put supers in the freezer and go on vacation.

[Riverrat]

Apis perry or Chip.  Can one of you guys chime in and help out.  Be good to see a northern keep tell how as you 2 have dealt with this one a time or 2

[Lburou]

...at 20 degrees the bees wouldn't be able to break cluster to get to the emergency feed IMO

If you have a couple hives with "light" stores, meaning not enough to overwinter, those are the hives that need your intervention.  Because bees don't crawl or fly at twenty degrees F, you can quickly share honey frames with the hives that need it and deal with the excess honey supers on a day that is better for you, and the bees.  If you are able to put a honey frame next to the cluster in the needy hives, they may be able to access it and not starve if warmer weather is likely to come soon.

Stacking the needy hives on the strong hives will make weak hives a little warmer but not give them the food they will need to survive winter.  But you may be able to provide honey frames AND stack them, hoping they will move to the stored honey you put next to their clusters. 

There may also be some wisdom in just combining the weak hives too, but that would work much better a month prior to the cold temperatures.  In that case, I'd probably select the queen from the stronger hives and flatten the queens from the weak hives.  You won't need newspaper.

Don't forget, all beekeeping is local.  In my location in Texas, I could get by with a solution that wouldn't work further north, mainly due to several 70 degree days in winter.  JMO   

[Bakersdozen]

I am going to add my 2 cents to this conundrum.  I don't think I have the answer, but some thoughts. 
1.  We can't control the weather.  I found myself in the same situation this fall.  Winter came about a month and half early.  Surprise!
2.  No need to worry about SHB or wax moths in the supers.  That good hard freeze killed eggs and the SHB probably moved down with the cluster.
3.  You can shuffle honey super frames into hive bodies.  This works well if you are using deep supers.  Shallow supers leave undesirable empty space with in the brood box.  When the early nectar flow starts, they will build comb on the bottom of the shallow frame.
4.  You could remove any queen excluders and put honey supers on top of light colonies.  After winter equinox the queen have moved up with the cluster and will start laying again.  She could lay eggs in the super.  I find this very undesirable, but better than losing a colony to starvation.
5. Combining colonies would be difficult as they are clustered.  The cluster might be located in both brood boxes.  You might chill the queens, workers, and any brood that might be in there.  (We don't know the exact date of this scenario, but late fall is usually broodless.)  The location of the cluster is critical here.  If they are already at the top of the brood boxes, they are out of food.
6. If combining, there is no guarantee the best queen will survive.  Someone mentioned that doing a combine will not benefit the cluster on top.  In a clustered state, this is true. 
7.  If you need to harvest that honey you will have to warm those frames up first.  Your going on vacation, so you aren't going to harvest right away.  If you don't have time to feed them sugar in some form, you certainly don't have time to extract honey.
8. The honey supers need to be pulled and not left on all winter, especially if you have queen excluders on.
9. No one has mentioned winter patties, and that's good.  Winter patties is not emergency food to prevent starvation.

Given Rat's hypothetical scenario of the totally caught off guard beekeeper that doesn't want to use the mountain camp method and hasn't prepared sugar bricks, I would remove the queen excluder and place honey supers on top of light colonies.  If the beekeeper does nothing, when he returns from vacation, those hives might still be alive.  He or she could get lucky.  Then he could put some fondant, mountain camp method or sugar bricks on any surviving colonies.

I think I have spent my 2 cents. 

[apisbees]

First you have 3 different temperatures in the hive. 94 deg over the brood. 65 deg maintained by the bees in their cluster, and the ambient temperature in the hive around the cluster, which is closer to the outside temp than the cluster temp. The larger the ambient space the bees do not occupy in the hive the lees the escaping heat from the bees will warm this space. Because the space the bees are not occupying is so close to the outside temperature opening and quickly removing excess honey supers above the cluster will not cause the bees a lot of stress. This being said you do not want to break the cluster, if the cluster is positioned between the brood box and the first honey super then you will need to leave that super in place. One exception - if you have a queen excluder still on and if you think the bees do not have enough stores below the QE to keep the bees down till spring when I would disturb the cluster and remove the QE and set the honey super back down on the cluster.
On hives I would deem light I would place a honey super over the cluster that came off another hive. The bees will work themselves up into it as needed.
Keep the jostling of the hive to a minimum and keep the cover on the hive as much as possible.  Remove cover look that the super is clear of bees put cover back on gently crack the super remove and place the super back on the remaining supers, repeat till you have removed all the supers you need to. next year promise to get it done earlier.

[Zweefer]

I’m with apis.  Pull honey from strong hives and place on top of weak ones. As 20 is still a heat wave here, I would be comfortable going in quickly to remove what was needed. I am convinced the bees are hardier to cold weather than we give them credit for.  Upon returning from vacation make sugar bricks (or whatever emergency feed you use) and get them on ASAP.  Pull any leftovers in spring to harvest, and consider the loss of honey as a learning tax and reminder to be more on top of it next fall.


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