I've seen this before but it just rung my bell a couple days ago.
Ok...tell me again, What happens to the syrup I would feed my bees in the winter which makes it not safe for the bees to eat?
I live in a climate that sometimes it can be 90 degrees in December, and its usually around 40 degrees for a low at nite..Of course we do get some really cold weather but it doesnt last long, maybe a week at a time.
your friend,
john
As long as the bees can fly every week or two, you should see no dysentery.
Keep in mind that nosema can cause dysentery, but dysentery is not nosema. They are two different things. Dysentery can be due to prolonged periods of the bees being hold up in the hive due to cold weather, or due to food stores with starch, impurities, and other feeds with waste byproducts.
I would not think you should have a dysentery problem in Texas from the temps you mentioned. If you see dysentery signs, I would lean towards nosema.
John, :?
I would like to hear more about your weather. You say sometimes it can be 90 in December, 40 at night. Elaborate a little more. Do your flowers flower in December, do you have winter time where there is no foraging for the bees. I feel a little perplexed at what you have said. I also wonder if you have these ambient temperatures if you need to be feeding your bees at all. Maybe I have missed something here, but I need to know, you know me, I need to know so many things, tell me please, and spend a little bit of time telling me about what I have queried. Have a wonderful and most awesome life and day, great health. Cindi
Hi Cindi!
90 degrees in December is not common but it does happen. Once we get a freezing temp in fall. just like most places, leaves fall down and the grass turns brown...Like, for instance, out last plant to have flowers on it is Broomweed..It looks like tiny tumbleweeds sort of.. Last year it lasted a long time after it made flowers, but this year I havent seen but a few plants get the flowers so far, and this morning i took a picture of the plants and there were no flowers at all.....So, for pretty much on all accounts,My bees dont have much to eat out there anymore. Things havent turned all the way brown yet but I bet in 2 weeks it will all be dead and brown.. There will be just a few green plants left, like Live oaks, and pine trees, and winter rye grass..oh yeh,...Fescue grass too. Sometimes, depending on rainfall, I still might have to mow something.
75 deegrees in the winter here is normal...pretty much average...Jan. and Feb. are the coldest months...We can get ice on the roads sometimes, which is a big deal for us! Sometimes, the base where i work will close down on these types of days. We can get down to 25 or colder sometimes but what makes it so cold is the moist winds that when blowing 3o mph it really feels cold. 10 degrees down here with the wind blowing is worse that 30 below up in Fairbanks.
We hardly ever get snow though......But I like it when we do!. The longest I've seen snow stay on the ground here is about 3 days...I remember years ago that the snow did get about 4 feet deep!. In about 3 days after that it was in the 70's again!
I dont cover my hives, and most year round, the bees can come outside. I just dont see where they can get food except for Paul and Kannas beer and coke can baskets.
Well, there ya go.....
Anything else I can tell you?
Maybe I can post a spring picture with a winter picture from my yard and let you see the difference!
your friend,
john
John, excellent response, now I understand a little more clearly what your winter is. Still kind of dumbfounds me though.
I think in celsius. So when you say 70 degrees F, I think of 21 degrees celsius. That is t-shirt weather to me. I can't picture winter with that type of weather, with no flowers, hee, hee, strange to me. But anyways, as you say, you can have that very obvious killing frost. That is nice that the weather is so warm throughout the majority of your winters. We are in a fairly temperate zone too, but not that warm. We only get a short period of time now and then when it is freezing, but our bees mostly remain in the winter cluster for a couple of months. They come out for short periods, if the sun shines, even when it is raining it is quite cool, clustering time. Our cold month is January.
Example here. Yesterday the sun kind of shone, the high here was: 13 C (55 F), light coat weather. Right now at 7:00 A.M. it is 5 C (41 F), heavy coat weather, hee, hee. The forecast today is for 13C again, it is nice outside working weather, I am planting my garlic today.
The weather is so different from place to place eh? Have a wonderful and awesome life and day, great health. Cindi
John, my weather is much like Cindi's. Our grass doesn't turn brown in the winter, Aug is the brown month, it goes dormant in the heat.(hot to us is 80.. :roll:) Today it is sposed to be 55 or so, sunshine/light clouds. Yesterday the bees had orientation flights, I was amazed & they are still bringing in pollen. Your winter temps are like our summer! We do get a few days to a week at a time of freezing in Jan-Feb, usually only w/clear weather..our cloud cover holds in the heat. We have an almost even # of evergreen & deciduous trees. As you get closer to the mtns more pine type. Like Cindi said, it's just a few degrees between light & heavy jackets..for me it is the amount of moisture in the air...makes it feel colder! J
Wow!, You guys weather surprises me!!
I had always thought that Cindis weather was like the Yukon!!! You know, pretty much snowed in all winter with frozen over lakes and stuff like that!
And I always thought Washington was similar, with tons of skiing snow and snowplows going all the time! I need to look at a map...I thought both you guys were more north than Minnesota, and a lot colder!
your friend,
john
The Pacific & Sound keeps it temperate, more so than the E Coast for sure. We don't get that much snow, some years none at all. It is grey for a good part of the time but doesn't really rain as much as you would think. Shhhh, don't tell anyone! :-X J
i also live in the PNW but have different weather. mine is much like cindis' weather but my temps are more extreme. colder in winter and more snow and rain. this fall has been very mild. 60 degrees is shorts weather for me and 50 is t-shirt weather when i'm working outside. we were over 50 today and no rain!!
i am still putting feeders out on days like this. they are flying at about 45 degrees and taking all the syrup. when the weather changes, i'll quit feeding. to much rain and the syrup will mold if they don't take it.
Kathy, stop feeding now. The bees need time to reduce that moisture in the colony to one that can be stored (yes, they do consume it too, I know). If I remember correctly, you have left a good deal of honey on for the bees, they should be OK, you don't need to feed them. BUT....you must stop NOW. The bees may be taking the sugar, they love sweet stuff, hee, hee, sometimes they don't know what is good for their future, hee, hee. If there is too much moisture in the hive, Kathy, that can bring about unnecessary problems with excess moisture. Listen to what I am saying, this is what our area is all about, excess moisture, we must understand this. Have a wonderful, awesome life and day, great health. Cindi
i have because the weather has changed. the reason i kept feeding is because the weather was warm, but there was nothing to bring in. they were still raising brood and using stores. this week, i put the dry sugar on and will now leave them alone for the winter except for checking the sugar.
has your fall been as mild as ours? we have been in upper 50's every day even with the rain! i enjoy it, but dread the cold.
Quote from: kathyp on November 19, 2008, 01:23:47 PM
has your fall been as mild as ours? we have been in upper 50's every day even with the rain! i enjoy it, but dread the cold.
I've ranted enough about the feeding, you know me, hee, hee. Our fall has been weird. Early killing frost the first week of October, it shut everything annual down. Now the weather has warmed somewhat, sitting averagely about 5-7 degrees C (that be, for you, hee, hee, 41-44 degrees F). You have undoubtedly been warmer than us. The night before last was very clear, froze outside, at 6:30 A.M. yesterday morning it was still heavy frost. Suddenly, a wind came upon us, it was a warm southerly wind, it felt so strange. I kid you not, within about a half hour the frost was all gone, the grass gone from silver to green. It was warm and t-shirt weather all day when that sun shone, when the sun went down, it got ding dang cold again!!! Today it is raining and was a 4 degrees C (39 F), I thought it might feel like it could snow tonight, not likely, due to the ocean winds, but could. So, we have been much more cold than you this fall I think. Beautiful day in this great life, Cindi
You are colder than us Cindi. It has been close to 60F for the last few weeks, very unusual! Had 1 heavy frost then a couple of light & "almost" frosts. I still haven't started up the woodstove yet. I gotta replace a couple of bricks & re-gasket the door ( I have to take the door off :shock:) Scary! I'm great @ taking things apart..not so good putting em back! :roll: J
Here in the PNW we often say, If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes or drive 5 miles."
I live on a Island in norther Puget Sound and have almost tropical weather at times. Cindi lives northeast of Vancouver, BC and has weather more similar to Seattle than I do. KathyP lives on the southwest side of Mt Hood at a higher elevation than either Cindi or I.
As a consequence KathyP gets greater temp fluxuations during the winter that either Cindi or I even though she is several hundred miles furhter south than either of us.
The PNW is full of micro-climates than can vary greatly in very short distances. It can range for Forks, Wa, where it has been know to rain 360+ days a year at times (50+ inches), to the Palouse or Eastern Oregon, where the annual water fall is less than 1 inch.
poka-bee, no wood stove yet? i have had the pellet stove going for a month!! of course, it's our only heat....
brian, it's been a strange one. handfull of light frosts and rain. no hard frosts yet, just picked the last of my bell peppers. they plant finaly bit it with the last frost.
Brian is so right in what he is saying about all our little microclimates in the PNW. We are quite similar though in many ways. I have had the heat on in our house since the beginning of October, when we had that early killing frost. We have natural gas, forced air furnace. The size of our house warrants that, we would freeze with only a wood burner. Our house is three stories, looks are deceiving and it doesn't look that big, but it is. We heat the house from usually mid-October until the beginning of May, and that is all.
It seems last year and this year we had that early killing frost, like I was saying first week of October. Generally, we don't get that killing frost until after Halloween. Two years, weird weather. Today is going to be sunny, the skies have cleared overnight, after raining hard all day yesterday. Go figure, the day before, t-shirt weather, yesterday rain, today sun, wonder if I can get out in a t-shirt. I still haven't got the garlic in, that garden is now tilled, with all the manures in, but haven't yet got down on the hands and knees, maybe today, hee,hee. Oh rats!!! Man, I do ramble and go off topic, my apology Kathy, seriously, I just can't help myself.... :-* :) :) :) Have a wonderful, most awesome life and day, groove on our lives, great health, Cindi