A couple of weeks ago I posted a question I'd had floating around my head about whether adult bees can just get by on pollen [only nurse bees, maybe] and whether you can have a nectar dearth with a pollen surfeit [yes] and can the bees starve even if there's a lot of pollen [yes].
Oh, am I glad I asked that question. Inspected my hives yesterday when I saw that one was not bringing in any pollen even though the others were bringing it in like crazy.
That hive was queenless, with some capped drone brood left to emerge. Still some pollen patty on the top and a tiny bit of the sugar brick left. Then I remembered that the cluster could still be starving even with the pollen - because we'd had very hard freezes here for almost a week after the maple bloom and the nectar had stopped. I cleaned up the bottom board, slipped in a frame of open brood from another hive and a frame of eggs from a third and got them all set up with 2 quarts of 1:1 syrup. They are guzzling it down. I think they'll be fine.
Thanks to all of you who take the time to patiently answer questions that must seem so basic. It makes a big difference in the quality of care I can give my colonies.
p.s. I overwintered ALL of my colonies this time. A huge victory for me.
Rurif....
QuoteI overwintered ALL of my colonies this time. A huge victory for me.
To the victor go the spoils, good for you. I have read your post for awhile and you deserve praise on this.
Cheers
gww
Congratulations Robin.
I hate to mention it but I do not think your winter is over and worse yet, you will probably have a warm dearth before your flow starts. For me, that is the worst time down here with the warm weather before the flowers start to bloom. This year, I reduced my losses a lot by feeding sugar water during the late warm winter, if you can call it winter, dearth. It has been getting colder now than it was in January/February.
Jim
Robin,
I think Saw might be right, I'm sticking with solid feed for a few more weeks.
Congrats on 100% success! Wish I could say the same.
Congrats on overwintering your colonies. That is a big achievement.
You're right about the unpredictable weather. It's very early for warm. We have a lot of trees blooming here right now. Above freezing night and day for the next 10 days. I'm going to be unable to work the hives much for the next three weeks due to work commitments, and I took a chance working a bit early rather than have a bunch of swarms, like last year.
Fingers and toes crossed.
Robin, I understand that you attribute some of your over-wintering success to the blankets you put inside your hives. Please tell me what materials you used for these covers. Thanks.
Quote from: jimineycricket on March 24, 2017, 11:11:37 AM
Robin, I understand that you attribute some of your over-wintering success to the blankets you put inside your hives. Please tell me what materials you used for these covers. Thanks.
I'm glad you asked. From top to bottom it looks like this:
1. telescoping cover
2. inner cover
3. quilt box: 2-3" shim with window screen stapled to the bottom. Lay a piece of denim/canvas on the screen and fill with cedar chips. Put pennies in the top corners so there's a bit of gap between the shim and inner cover above.
4. feed shim: 2-3 inch shim deep enough for sugar bricks and pollen patties
5. hive box
6. hive box
7. bottom board
The reason I don't drill holes in the sides of the quilt box is that we use these for other things during the year. Easy to rip the screen off and replace in the fall if need be.
We make the shims out of scrap and don't really care if they all match or how tall they are. I've used them when I only had deep frames, but medium supers. Put a shim on the bottom to make up the difference. Not ideal, but works in a pinch.
If I don't have an extra quilt shim in the fall, I staple screen to the bottom of whatever empty super I have at hand and put the denim and a couple inches of chips in.
Note: Ventilation is still important. I forgot to vent one this year and the chips and denim were saturated by the time I checked. I changed it for dry stuff and ventilated and the bees made it through just fine.
Another benefit is that to check the size of the cluster and how much feed they have left, all I have to do is pull back the denim a bit to see the bees through the screen.
I've been pretty happy with this system so far.
Thanks Rurification. I had asked for this info before and did not get an answer. I live in NE TX and I had a couple of hives with Mold on the top of the frames. I am going to try this on some hives next fall and the same blanket frame can be used to let light in the top of hive in warm months. By removing the cloth and shavings and leaving a gap between and top will encourage the SHB to go down where they hopefully will get in the oil pan. I am now making my inner cover out of #8 hardware cloth instead of plywood. All I need to do is add cloth and chips. Again thanks
Quote from: paus on March 26, 2017, 10:50:57 AM
Thanks Rurification. I had asked for this info before and did not get an answer. I live in NE TX ... Again thanks
Paus - I'm glad to help and sorry I didn't see your initial request. These boxes have made all the difference for me. Hardware cloth covers is a great idea for where you are. I'm pretty sure Sawdustmaker uses those, too.
Have a great season!