Wintering a hive in the North

[Finski]

Great thread. Concerned about my first winter also, and I think it's a good thing to start thinking about it early. A local guy who's been doing this for 15 years says he needs 70 - 90 pounds of honey per hive to make it through the winter. I don't know how many frames that equates to, but it seems like a lot.

It is still June.

If you collect the whole year honey to the hive, propably the hive is full of honey soon. They swarm. They have no space to rear winter bees and you hive will be lost before you even understand what happened.

70-90 lbs honey for winter is absolutely too much. The bee race is not suitable to area or hive has no insulating properties.

I harvest annually 60 kg honey /hive, and then I feed on average 20 kg sugar to hives. With that amount  bees manage from September to May and I need not even feed them during that 9 months period.

I know bee strains which does not stop brood rearing in time and they will be dead before Christmas.
There are too strains which just burn awfully much fuel during winter and die even In polystyrene hives.

Sugar is as good winter food as honey. No doubt about it.

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[BlueBee]

naw, bees can survive our cold in Michigan.

I'd like to find out exactly who got their packages from down south suppliers in michigan and how many actually survive.

Sounds like an incongruency here  ;)

If you're buying packages every year, you're doing something wrong.  Not all packages into Michigan come from the south either.  A big supplier around me brings in bees by the Semi load from California.   

[BlueBee]

If you do get packages then He is a big proponent of requeening all your packages with queens from proven survivor/resistant stocks. He mentioned russians in particular. He is working on a program to get survivor queens in michigan, but this has seriously set him back.

I have never tried Russians, but why would I want to?  My Carniolan and Italian stock do great.  The MORE bees in a northern hive over winter, the better IMO.  More bees = More heat = less freezing.

[Sunnyboy2]

How well do thr poly hives interface with wooden supers I have?  Can I mix or must I keep a 100% poly hive and 100 % wood?

[BlueBee]

As far as wrapping, should I use rigid foam insulation outside the hive before wrapping, or should they be fine with just roofing paper?

Bees can survive in plain old wood boxes without doing anything, but that doesn't mean there aren't ways to increase their odds of survival.  Roofing paper or polystyrene?  You're looking for a simple answer to a complex thermodynamics question. :-D

On the one hand, the black tar paper will gain many watts of heat energy on a sunny winter day which will help unfreeze the bees from the night before whereas polystyrene will not let the warmth of the sun into the bees.  However the polystyrene will hold what heat IS inside a hive much better at night than a hive with just tar paper.  What would you be more comfortable in if YOU lived outside in Wisconsin day and night?  A thin black wind breaker, or a goose down parka?  

Nearly all my hives are polystrene boxes.  This has worked well for me, but there is also the freezer effect which can cause problems.

[Finski]

How well do thr poly hives interface with wooden supers I have?  Can I mix or must I keep a 100% poly hive and 100 % wood?

I made 45 years ago wooden uninsulated hives for 25 colonies.
I use them still.
25 years ago I started buy polyhives. They were very expencive on those days, but spring build up was so fast that I got price back in same year.

Now I use polys as brood boxes and old pine boxes are as supers.

3 cm thick wooden box consumes food in winter 50% more than polyhive. So food lasts 3 month longer for bees than in cold hive. One of the most important think is that poly box weight is only 2 lbs.

Hives must be feeded allways full of syrup. Otherwise bees do not cap the food. It takes moisture from air and start to swell out from cells. Even biggest colonies may die in those hives.



I use to have 2-3 polyboxes and 4-6 wooden supers.

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[Finski]

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Survival over winter is not a goal. It is schildden play to do that when you learn it and listen a good teacher.

I have 20% spare hives for winter. I have not starve out cases. Losses of colonies becomes from nosema and spoiled queens. There are drone layers and some of queen have lost its power to lay. Perhaps they got nosema.

Varroa deminish  cluster size and it means more time to build up in Spring. Delayed yield is a big loss.

The most imoportant is to get the colony full size that it can harvest to me honey. 2-box colonies can harvest dandelion honey and raspberry honey, but not one box winterer.

When I have a colony and I want yield from raspberry, the box must be full of brood at the first half May, that bees have enough foragers on the late half of June. It takes 7 weeks that hive has 5 boxes bees and is able to get raspberry hioney.

5-6 box hive can get 5-10 kg raspberry in one day, it hive is good. If it has only one box, i can do nothing. Nectar fills brood box and build up goes slowly.


here we have Finnish Balance Hive net. You may see huge day yields in South East country.
I have Kouvola spot.
Figures are not all one day yields.

http://koti.tnnet.fi/web144/vaakapesa/selaa.php

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[Finski]

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Early yield with big clusters.

You should have a strategy on your area, what you should to do to get good honey yield. If you do not mind about honey, it is same what you do. It needs no skills. Just keep a hive on your home yard and wait for a escaped swarm. Varroa killed that kind of nursing style here 25 years ago.


Our summer is short and I need every week to be able to harvest.

Today biggest hives have brough 50 kg honey in June. Mainly it is from raspberry.
Small colonies are still on their way to build up, and they are short of foragers. Perhaps the hive is 4 box big, but foragers are too few. Larvae eat all what forages carry home.

During a week I must join small hives to big ones that they are usefull in this summers harvest.

Our summer is very early now 2-3 weeks earlier than normal. Bee flowers may stop blooming 15.7.
Normally main flow stops 28.7. Normally raspberry is at its best now, but it has been over one week.

Spring canola has started to bloom here.

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[Better.to.Bee.than.not]

naw, bees can survive our cold in Michigan.

I'd like to find out exactly who got their packages from down south suppliers in michigan and how many actually survive.

Sounds like an incongruency here  ;)

If you're buying packages every year, you're doing something wrong.  Not all packages into Michigan come from the south either.  A big supplier around me brings in bees by the Semi load from California.   

huh? what in any of that says anything about buying packages every year? none thats what.... what it says is me saying "bees can survive in winter here" thats a obvious since they've done it for many many decades. and then something completely different that says I would like to find out exactly who got packages/etc from down south....and how many actually survived.... That is called curiosity and research.... seriously if you have absolutely nothing to 'add' to the conversation, except your poorly understood silliness, then don't say anything, right? is the topic what I say? no... so..... no one doubts there are packages that come from other places besides the south... who doesn't know that?

The thing is a lot of bees DO die off in michigan, it would be good to know the correlation of those that for instance do not stop laying drone in the winter at the right time, because they have genetic training that isn't correct for the area's weather. down south, californian or other. this still does not mean they cannot over winter of course, no one said anything of the sort. its just a factor, large or small whatever, but nothing is absolute in nature.

I said "If you do get packages then He is a big proponent of requeening all your packages with queens from proven survivor/resistant stocks. He mentioned russians in particular. He is working on a program to get survivor queens in michigan, but this has seriously set him back."

I didn't say YOU should get russians. I said what was suggested. first of all re-queening breaks the mite cycle but the point is "proven survivor/resistant stocks" a lot of people like russians because of their grooming habits. and all of us in michigan should be working towards getting survivor queens in michigan imo.

[BlueBee]

Re-queening does not break the mite cycle long enough to rid a hive or varroa or even have much impact.  Our winters are MUCH longer than a re-queening break and the varroa still survive even the winter break.  

I really don't think there is much of a mystery in making "survivor" queens in Michigan.  My hives are making new survivors all the time.  I haven't bought any queens in years and my hives are exploding with bees; sans those little 800 bee colonies I experimented overwintering.  

I really think if Michigan beeks would pay more attention to the thermodynamics of a hive, we would have a lot more "survival" bees here.  That was the general point of this thread if I recall; what should the new guy do to get his bees prepared for winter.

[Finski]

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We do not need thermodynamic calculations because our polyhives, and self made insulated hives works fine in our long winter. They save food and bees do not starve out.

Then some propel head from Enland comes to explain plaa plaa plaa, and hardly have seen ice cover on lake. And all those "ventilated inner covers", - nonsense.

Our polyhive manufacturers have over 1000 own hives, and they know what they do.

I just bought medium boxes. Price was 10 euros a box.
Frames were 40 cents per piece.
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[Oblio13]

Re-queening does not break the mite cycle long enough to rid a hive or varroa or even have much impact.  Our winters are MUCH longer than a re-queening break and the varroa still survive even the winter break...

Broodless periods, including winter, dramatically reduce the mite population. Mites can survive on adult bees, but they only reproduce on brood. Unmolested Varroa will reach a peak population in the fall, when it's critical for bees to be healthy. A late-summer interruption in the mite's life cycle allows the bees to go into winter with a lower parasite load.

[Michael Bush]

>Dr. Connor. He talked about how he lost every single package colony that he started this year

That was my experience last year.  I was trying to get my numbers back up after being out of the country three years.  It was a waste of my money and effort.  I don't think any of those package bees survived the winter, although they went into winter with a lot of stores.

[Better.to.Bee.than.not]

Re-queening does not break the mite cycle long enough to rid a hive or varroa or even have much impact.  Our winters are MUCH longer than a re-queening break and the varroa still survive even the winter break.

Well, you are just simply wrong. it isn't even as if it isn't or hasn't been documented. It has plenty. Does it solve the problem? no. does it remove all the varroa in the whole state if someone breaks the cycle with one re-queening... no, so when they go out and forage they do obviously pick up more, if there are other hives near it, they obviously pick up more. but it does without a doubt, not even questionable, disrupt the cycle within that hive.

I really don't think there is much of a mystery in making "survivor" queens in Michigan.  My hives are making new survivors all the time.  I haven't bought any queens in years and my hives are exploding with bees; sans those little 800 bee colonies I experimented overwintering.  

let's see "I haven't bought any queens in years and my hives are exploding with bees" ~ "I really don't think there is much of a mystery in making "survivor" queens in Michigan." ....no you are right there isn't, you just mentioned why. using survivor stock/genetics and doing things like using other hives to supplement population, will do it rather easily. As you stated larger populated hives are obviously 'more likely' to overwinter. more bees equal more heat , and just plain more chance of enough surviving. Though they also consume more resources.

I really think if Michigan beeks would pay more attention to the thermodynamics of a hive, we would have a lot more "survival" bees here.  That was the general point of this thread if I recall; what should the new guy do to get his bees prepared for winter.

We agree attention needs to be paid to thermodynamics of the hive, that does not mean other things are not a factor, and should not be paid attention to or considered.

[Finski]

Re-queening does not break the mite cycle long enough to rid a hive or varroa or even have much impact.  Our winters are MUCH longer than a re-queening break and the varroa still survive even the winter break...

Broodless periods, including winter, dramatically reduce the mite population. Mites can survive on adult bees, but they only reproduce on brood. Unmolested Varroa will reach a peak population in the fall, when it's critical for bees to be healthy. A late-summer interruption in the mite's life cycle allows the bees to go into winter with a lower parasite load.

I wonder what you mean.

mite douples its amount every month. Brood amount start to go down in late summer but more mites suck less brood. Finally there are like porriage on the floor when bees have drawn violated brood from cells.

When summer bees die, there remain healthy wintering bees. They may be reduced 20%, 50% or almost all.
A big hive ,may be totally empty in autumn when varroa kills the winter bee brood . Yes, I have has such hive.

During winter mites die in same relation as bees.

10 mites in February will produce 1000 mites in September. And that is a treshold of colony violation.

.These things are very well known.

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[BlueBee]

Well, you are just simply wrong. 

Afraid not. :(  As Finski says, these things are very well known.

I will agree with you that varroa is a significant factor in winter dead outs and it may not hurt to re-queen mid summer IF you really know what you're doing and what the bees are doing.  Not something I would advise for a guy just starting out with bees (original post).  There is certainly risk in re-queening and you could end up with no winter bees at all if your timing is off, the queen gets eaten by the bird, or as Finski says, the varroa STILL kill too many winter brood.  I would deal with varroa like Finski does if you want to reduce their devastation in the winter.

[Finski]

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I have now played with oxalic acid trickling 10 years. It means that I killed mites before winter when hives were broodless.
Now I see that mites harvest half of my bees in autumn, and my clusters have never bees so small as they are now.

My 2 neighbours use thymol pads during feeding. Their colonies are in good condition in spring and their early honey yield is good.

During last years In Finland experienced beekeepers have lost all their hives when they have not been carefull enough and they have trusted that "I know how to do this". Varroa hits at once back.

One reason is that treatment does not affect allways like in theory. 96% should die but it was actually 70%.
30% alive means that mites are back after 2 brood cycle.

Mite things are very well known but beekeepers do not believe and they are not carefull enough


Forums are sometimes more dangerous to beginners than mites.

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