bees in the basement?

[gmcharlie]

  Been reading quite a bit about storeing small nucs in the basement/ root cellar in the winter.   how was that done???  were they sealed and cleansing not allowed or??????

Pondering trying to store small nucs in my bee barn next fall.....

[Robo]

They kept them in the dark so they would not fly.

I tried keeping nucs in my basement for a few years.  The biggest problem is that although the basement is pretty constant in temperature, they don't get the benefit from the sun.  They where always last to fly and didn't even fly on some days when the other bees where.



I have now switch to polystyrene nucs outside.  It is much less work and they actually do better.

[gmcharlie]

everything I have read about teh polystrene nucs has been heat problems in teh summer...

got to be hard on the bees (mentaly)  to bee  cooped up all winter with no light  and i imagin holding it that long is hard on them also.

[Robo]

everything I have read about teh polystrene nucs has been heat problems in teh summer...

That is if you don't provide proper ventilation.   In the summer I mainly use the poly nucs for hauling brood.  I take my queen mating nucs with the last batch of queens and put them in the poly nucs to overwinter. Then I just start new mating nucs in the spring.