Warm winter/stored honey

[garys520]

Here in the Northeast the winter has been warmer than usual and the girls have been eating up all of their stored honey.  All five of my hives were packed solid up until I removed sugar water Thanksgiving weekend, but today two of the hives were dead with no honey and a little fondant left on top. The other three are low but really going to town on the extra food I provided.  As an insurance against starvation I always add fondant to the hives in late December, sometimes they eat it and sometimes they don't.  We've been getting a lot of temps in the 40's and a couple of days in the low 50's.  I was wondering if other beekeepers have had this problem with warm winters.

[bud1]

yep been in the 60  70  range here fo the last few weeks; but dont see it as a problem, i rather enjoy it myself when i hear about  the snow and ice upthere i just knda grin as i reach over and kick on the ac

[buzzbee]

If you have the fondant,place it over the hole in the inner cover. they will retrieve it as they need it.

[FRAMEshift]

We've been in the 50s and 60s so it looks like about in the middle between Connecticut and Mississippi.  Our bees are not making large amounts of brood yet but they are bringing in lots of pollen so if the weather stays warm, they might start soon.  

This is the warmest winter we've seen since we started keeping bees.  I wonder if anyone knows, is there a daylength effect on spring brood rearing.  Are the bees waiting for a certain day length  before they commit to brood?

[greenbtree]

I have had to give two of my hives emergency rations.  They had eaten through ALL of their stores.  Frameshift, aren't bees day length neutral?  If you put a heater in the hive and provided them with carb and protein sources, wouldn't they continue to make brood?  I know that in the hives I had to add feed to, there seemed to be a LOT more bees in there than when I closed them up for the Winter.  If some lines like Russians or Carni's did that, it would be useful, I just don't know if that is the method they use to deal with Winter.

JC

[T Beek]

Warmest winter on record for North Wisconsin.  Due to the warm temps and over consumption my bees have been surviving on little more than dry sugar for a month already and unless these abnormal temps also bring about an early appearance of dandelions I'm not too optimistic for these bees.  I think are many with the same concerns this year.

We had 33F and sunshine the other day when we should be in our 'annual' deep freeze of below zero.  I had bees making dump runs, one appears to have nosema pretty bad :(

This very concerning topic has been discussed on other threads at least as far back as December.

I'm afraid all many of us can do is hope for an 'early' Spring.

thomas

[FRAMEshift]

Frameshift, aren't bees day length neutral? 

I have heard beeks say that bees stop making brood in November and don't start again until after the Winter Solstice.  I don't know if this was just a coincidence in the case of their climate or if the bees have a day-length strategy.  We have at least one hive that never stopped making brood this Winter.  But usually there are only little spots of brood comb until late February.

Obviously, bees in Florida start earlier than here but it might be a combination of day length and temperature and availability of pollen and nectar.  Just wondering if anyone had a better understanding of this than I do.

[MTWIBadger]

Gary
One question I have is what is the super composition of your hives and how heavy were they going into the winter? 

I winter in 2 deep insulated supers and a shallow here in MT for a strong hive. I figure they have over 150# of honey and I can't even begin to tilt them by lifting on one hand hold.
Last winter two of my strong hives consumed all their stores and needed sugar water by late March.