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  • From: "Thomas Grizzle" <griz AT mindspring.com>
  • To: "'Randall Austin'" <ra41717 AT gmail.com>, <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Cold Weather
  • Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2014 20:25:48 -0500

Maybe it is a good thing for the hive to get a good chill for controlling varoa and other parasites too??  Thanks again….

 

Tom

 

From: Randall Austin [mailto:ra41717 AT gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2014 5:10 PM
To: Thomas Grizzle; ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [ocba] Cold Weather

 

Tom,

Good question; it gets asked a lot this time of year.

There are 2 things to remember:

1) This is North Carolina, not North Dakota. What we consider "cold" is nothing to critters who live outside year-round, whether they be cardinals, squirrels or honey bees.

2) Cold will not kill a colony of honey bees. They form a tight cluster and shiver to keep warm. This system has worked for millions of years in much harsher climates than ours. Human attempts to help by wrapping the hives may potentially do a great deal of harm by trapping moisture, creating damp conditions that will kill the bees. A really good cold spell is actually better for overwintering than our typical NC winter weather because a tight cluster will slow its metabolism and consume much fewer resources than if the bees are just wandering around with nothing to do but eat. When you read about people having trouble overwintering bees in cold climates such as Alaska, it is the length of the winter that is the main problem, not the temperature itself.

Your comment about walking a few centimeters to get honey is actually a major point that beekeepers need to be aware of. The winter cluster spans a certain sized area, depending of course on how many bees there are in the colony. The cluster creeps along onto new stores as they eat up what is underneath. If the honey stores are out of reach of the cluster, the colony can starve even though there is plenty of honey "nearby". That's why we want wall-to-wall honey going into winter, not patches here and there. A few centimeters away may as well be a few miles away. For a strong, healthy-sized colony with lots of honey this won't be an issue, but for a cluster with a small footprint and honey scattered randomly around, the beekeeper may be disappointed come spring.

Randall

On 1/5/2014 3:55 PM, Thomas Grizzle wrote:

Hey y’all,

 

The forecast for Tuesday morning is 9 oF.  With this unusually cold weather, is there anything that could be done to your average bee hive to give them a helping hand?  I have a total of two, so I’d be willing to wrap the hive in blankets if that’s not silly.  If it makes no significant difference I’ll twiddle my thumbs instead.  I know they have honey stores galore…assuming the bees are not too cold to walk a few centimeters to get it.

 

Thanks, in advance.

 

Tom

 




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