I've never been able to get my horizontal top bar hive through a winter. I thought this would finally be the year, but no such luck.
I looked in on them last month, and the cluster was at the top of the bars, with no capped honey visible. So I put a couple sugar bricks on top of them, then covered those with several feed bags and the roof.
This is the first warm day since then, so I looked in again. They were obviously taking the sugar. They weren't wet. The cluster was a good size. So what do you suppose killed them?
(http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c116/Oblio13/photo_zps50c5a4b8.jpg) (http://s26.photobucket.com/user/Oblio13/media/photo_zps50c5a4b8.jpg.html)
If there wasn't any honey just the plain sugar, they probably starved. Bees need some moisture to dissolve the sugar. Its hard for them to survive on dry sugar alone. I never used Top bar hives but from people I talk to that use them, if it gets real cold it is harder for bees to move sideways to get to more honey. They move to the top a starve. Solution is to have them absolutely loaded down with honey in the fall and they usually make it.
I used to keep top bar hives. I enjoyed them, but I just don't think that they do well in cold climates. They have a huge area over their head. I found it very difficult to feed them over the top bars. They also have a harder time moving laterally when it gets really cold. What did the dead out look like? That often tells you a lot about what happened. Were there a bunch on bees head down in cells? That means starvation.
For some reason I can't figure out, that pic isn't showing up very large. I didn't pull any frames, what you're seeing is exactly what I saw when I peeled back the feed sacks: a dead cluster in contact with partially eaten sugar bricks. Presumably there are more dead bees between the frames and covering the base of the hive.
What kind of roof insulation did you have?
mvh Edward :-P
Have you had cold weather recently?
Did you remove empty frames in the fall and condense the hive as much as possible? Or at least put a follower board between the full and empty frames? Or have enough capped stores in early fall to make it through the winter?
It's been a very hard winter. Some of them don't make it.
make them smaller to conserve heat. wrap them with foam.
jay
Quote from: edward on February 20, 2014, 02:22:06 PM
What kind of roof insulation did you have?
mvh Edward :-P
On top of the bars I had four feed bags, then a gabled roof with an air space. There was about a foot of snow on top of that.