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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com>
  • To: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] Overwintering stores - how much is optimal
  • Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 17:14:14 -0400

I’m looking for a little over-wintering guidance for my colonies started at the end of May. My weak hive seems to have pulled things together during the fall nectar flow, but I would welcome input from experienced beekeepers. 

My set-up: 2 full deeps for brood boxes. All frames of the lower box are drawn out and filled with brood and/or stores. The upper box has 5½ frames of honey, nectar, and bee bread storage and 4½ frames with undrawn foundation. I have been feeding this hive continually since they were installed in May.

 I’ve attached pics of the center frames in the upper brood box to give you a sense of what I’m seeing. 

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So, if 1) the colony needs 60 pounds of stores to overwinter; and, 2) frames in a deep filled with honey and stores average 7 pounds, then my weak colony has about 35 pounds of stores in the upper box. That means that the lower box only needs to provide 25 pounds of stores, which seems to be well within expectations. The bees are still bringing in pollen everyday that they can fly. So by my calculations, my weak colony should have enough packed away for a normal winter. Are my assumptions on track? I was planning to leave both brood boxes on through the winter. Is that a reasonable plan or should I squeeze the bees down into a single deep?

Varroa don’t seem to be a problem, but there are more hive beetles than I would hope - even some crawling around on comb where before they were only showing up in the feeder box. I’m interested in what other beekeepers have used to successfully control hive beetles in those instances where varroa control is not required.

As always, I appreciate the input and advice of experienced OCBA beekeepers and the support, comments, observations of the beekeepers who (like me) are still trying to sort it all out.

FYI - Unfortunately, I will be traveling during the upcoming OCBA meeting where we will get guidance from the state bee inspector about overwintering colonies.

Thanks,

John  


John Rintoul
(919) 967-0674 (H)
(919) 414-4071 (M)



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