Overwinter Bees in Northern MN

PatM · September 15, 2015, 02:19:44 PM

This is my first year with bees, and I am trying to figure out what I need to do to keep them alive over the winter. I am in northern MN, USDA zone 3b if that helps. I know that I will need to do something soon, but I am trying to figure out what.

I am thinking of making a spacer out of 2x2 to put on top of the upper brood box to have some space to put some extra sugar and pollen for the bees. Then put a honey super on with a piece of extruded foam insulation at a slight angle so any condensation would run down the side of the hive. And put some fiberglass insulation on top of that.

Do I need any insulation on the sides of the hive? I have read a lot of different info on it. It can gets cold here, -40 degrees F is not uncommon. Should I put more rigid foam on the sides then wrap it in tar paper, or would it be better to just have the tar paper on the outside?

Last question, when should I prepare the hive for winter? I still have a honey super on that the bees are starting to draw comb on. The 2 brood boxes are full of honey, so there should be enough for the bees, just none for me. Not a surprise with 2 first year hives.

mikecva · September 15, 2015, 02:57:49 PM

Glad to here you are not taking all of your first year honey (a mistake a lot of first year beeks make.) Have you been feeding 2:1 syrup (if so that may be what they are storing, but no worries, they will eat it any way). I have used a wind break made of bales of hay and I have used roofing tar-paper for insulation (I have not used hive-wraps so maybe someone else can tell you how they work in your area.) Is there a bee club near you? Maybe they can also advise you. Good Luck -Mike

PatM · September 15, 2015, 03:03:30 PM

I have only fed them early in the spring when I first got my two nuc's, nothing since then.

Unfortunately, it seems most bee keepers around here don't try to overwinter their bees. The hives are already in a pretty sheltered area, so I don't think I will need a wind break.

Dallasbeek · September 15, 2015, 03:39:29 PM

You should put your location in your profile so that when you post questions in the future, people will know where you are. Most answers in beekeeping depend on where the beek is located.

The University of Minnesota should be a huge resource for you. Dr. Marla Spivak there is a major researcher and authority on honeybees. Contact her office for some assistance and advice. If you can get down to one of the meetings held on campus, you'd be miles ahead of most of us. I have 3 nephews in St. Paul that are looking to get into beekeeping, so I know you have a lot of resources there. Good luck with getting them through the winter.

GSF · September 15, 2015, 09:18:56 PM

I'd like to help, but down here in Alabama I don't have much experience to draw on. THANK GOD!!!

Honestly, my hat's off to our northern beeks.

Dallasbeek · September 15, 2015, 09:32:58 PM

Oh, yeah. You're a little south of Bemidji. That IS northern MN! Brrrr.

OldMech · September 17, 2015, 06:45:19 PM

Hey Pat, hope this helps you. Your winter is a couple weeks longer than mine, with perhaps a bit more snow there.
http://www.outyard.net/wintering.html

PatM · September 17, 2015, 11:28:54 PM

OldMech,

Thanks for the great write up. I am not too worried about the snow, since my hives are in a pretty protected area without too much wind, so snow will just add insulation to the hives.

Your advice isn't too far off from what the University of MN has on their site, just with insulation on the top to keep moisture at bay instead of a moisture board.

For reference, here is what the U of M has:
https://www.beelab.umn.edu/sites/beelab.umn.edu/files/cfans_asset_462858.pdf

Bush_84 · September 17, 2015, 11:51:41 PM

To be honest I have never had much luck. My biggest success was my bee shack. There is a topic around here somewhere about it but not everybody will have access to that. I took a garden shed insulated it,sealed every crack, installed electric, put a space heater on a thermocube set to run between 35-45, and installed two dryer vents on opposite sides of the shed (one has a fan installed in it that pushes air out and air comes in the other). I had 3/3 hives make it through with that setup. I used to live in breezy point and an old timer wintered his hives in a special shed but not sure what he did.

Even if you have a quiet and dark shed/garage you'd be ahead of the game. Sorry to be a buzz kill, but my bees either froze in December or starved in February/March until I got my shed.

Bush_84 · September 17, 2015, 11:55:30 PM

Found it.

http://www.beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=45610.0

OldMech · September 18, 2015, 11:26:51 AM

Quote from: Bush_84 on September 17, 2015, 11:51:41 PM
To be honest I have never had much luck. My biggest success was my bee shack. There is a topic around here somewhere about it but not everybody will have access to that. I took a garden shed insulated it,sealed every crack, installed electric, put a space heater on a thermocube set to run between 35-45, and installed two dryer vents on opposite sides of the shed (one has a fan installed in it that pushes air out and air comes in the other). I had 3/3 hives make it through with that setup. I used to live in breezy point and an old timer wintered his hives in a special shed but not sure what he did.

Even if you have a quiet and dark shed/garage you'd be ahead of the game. Sorry to be a buzz kill, but my bees either froze in December or starved in February/March until I got my shed.

Having bees that are capable of wintering is the best place to start. I have tried multiple times to winter packages from different places. Some few of them did survive. I have had better luck by purchasing northern bred queens and replacing the package queens. Using that method, along with OAV has produced spectacular results here where I live. Two winters ago, the state wide "loss" or winter kill was over 70% because of the LONG and nasty winter. I lost one hive.
The bees in my hives that winter stovepiped.. meaning they could not break cluster to move to the sides, so they went through their honey reserves straight up. They came to the top of their hives in early February. It was -55 degrees with the wind chill, so there was no way I was going out to open hives... When I had wintered them, I put Sugar cakes on the top bars, so when the bees reached the top, they hit the sugar cakes, and used them. The last week in February it warmed enough that they could start moving, and they began to use the reserves they could not reach when it was -55 degrees F...
Last winter I failed to realize that with the plethora of blooming plants, there was no flow... So in mid September I found hives that had no reserves and started feeding HARD and fast... but it was not enough, too little too late... So I put Sugar cakes on them.. Late January we had a day that was 39 degrees, so I popped the tops to peek, and found most of the sugar cakes gone, so I slid in more.. ALL of my locally bred bees survived.. I had ten packages as a sort of last ditch effort to see if they could winter. Nine of them died at the bottom of their hive clustered, with capped syrup all around them.
I have proven to myself numerous times that there IS a difference in the bees. Bees that can winter, and bees that cannot. If you have bees that can winter, and you winterize them correctly, they will survive. Allowing bees that reach the top to starve because there is no sugar on them (fondant, candy board etc) is inexcusable.. If you have enough honey they should not need the sugar and you can use the sugar you put on them to make spring syrup, so nothing is wasted. At the very least, put newspaper on the top bars and pour granulated sugar on the newspaper, the bees WILL use it if they need it. Yes it can make a mess, but better a mess than dead bees.
YOU are the one that needs to make sure the bees have what they need to survive. That starts with genetics and ends with having enough honey and other resources to make it until spring. If you fail to do that, the chances they will die goes up exponentially.

I have built bee sheds in Maine. Both to protect from wind and snow, as well as Bears. They work exceptionally well. SO well, that it is my goal to build them here in Iowa as well for my permanent outyards... No bears, but horrifyingly cold winds at times..... No heaters in them, but they do have a 12 volt battery for lights with a small solar panel on top to maintain the battery. Just have not gotten it started/done yet.

Bush_84 · September 18, 2015, 07:36:16 PM

I literally tried everything I could. I would wrap with tar paper, insulate top, insulate whole hive, top entrance, no top entrance, mountain camp. Didn't seem to matter. Weak hives froze in December and strong hives went through three deeps plus their mountain camp by March. Italians went through their stores to fast while carniolans didn't keep enough bees to survive the inevitable March/April cold snaps. They would either freeze or starve with honey an inch above them.

From my experience which doesn't extend decades by any means, but keep in mind I have kept bees in the ops region, is that the most important thing is to treat for nosema/varroa, have some sort of wind break, and make sure that they have as much stores as possible. I'm not certain that insulating whole hive did much,but still insulate top. I'm also not certain where I stand on the top entrance debate. Our winters are pretty dry up here but I have seen my top entrances freeze up on cold days. So you figure that the vapor is better out than in, but having a top entrance will negate most measures at trying to keep the bees warm.

I don't care what everybody says. Cold is hard on bees. Yes wet and cold is worse than just plain cold, but that holds true for practically everything. In my years doing this my bees have done significantly better in mild winters than in harsh winters. So really the key is to keep bees between 35-45 degrees. This seems to me to be the best range that isn't to hot and isn't to cold. Colder than this and bees use more honey and their bodies get stressed trying to keep the cluster warm. Hotter than this and the bees become to active.

So that leads us back to how to accomplish this. Again I did this by pimping out a garden shed. I've seen others do this by essentially building a box around their hives. It'd have to be insulated, heated, and vented.