Ready for winter?

[MustbeeNuts]

Mustbeenuts,

  I have 3 mediums on top of a deep and have been wondering if I should take the top one off.

My experience is that one deep is enough to winter for  that colony. Take all 3 mediums off.

In your area it might not matter, in the cold I do it to help keep warmth, smaller space more bees= more heat. Also they back fill the hive bodies, and you can harvest the top, in a really cold climate like finski has and in the northland, they don't move up to the third super anyway. Just sits there, so you might as well take it off.

[skflyfish]

Well Al, I think I am close. This morning I pulled all the supers that I left on for cleaning. This afternoon I had to combine the nuc back into the original hive. That hive, and the original swarm are a little light on stores, despite the feeding. I will keep 2:1 baggies in the inner cover for a while for them. The only thing remaining to do is to add the insulation to the inner covers, but that won't happen till November.

For only a 56F day, and October to boot, the bees were quite gentle today.

I did find the remains of a mouse in the nuc. Amazing how it got in that tiny opening. Guess he wished he hadn't done that.  :)

Ya know Al, I might have time for that coffee now.  :-D

Jay

[Highlandsfreedom]

Highlandsfreedom. How much Borage did you plant to get a sudden burst of stores like that ? How do you use it yourself ?

If you look up my youtube vids. search for  highlandsfreedom and you can get a view of our yard.  As for what we did it was ALL the bees.  It is now about 3 feet tall!!! It drowned out the dill we had planted in the middle.  It just keeps blooming!!!!  I will try and snap a pic of it 3 months after the vid was made and post it for you.