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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Mark Waller <wallermarkw AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: "ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Too late to feed weak hive?
  • Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2016 15:25:54 -0500

Hey Mark,

There are a million ways to keep bees and far be it from me to tell somebody that their chosen practice is wrong, since within broad boundaries everything/anything will work. However I can tell you that without any doubt whatsoever that in our part of the world it is absolutely, positively unnecessary to wrap our hives for winter. The native habitat of our honey bees is basically the foothills of the Alps and they are biologically designed to handle far worse, and far longer, winters than we have in Orange County. The fact is that the bees are insulated -- by the mantle of the cluster formed by the bees themselves -- and we don't need to do more than that for them around here. In fact we can get carried away in our attempts to "help" the bees and make them too cozy, whereby the hive traps too much moisture and creates unhealthful conditions as well as risking suffocation.

As it turns out, the best overwintering condition for honey bees is where they are a good cold state, forming a tight cluster -- they consume fewer honey stores that way. In the Midwest there are huge warehouses where commercial beekeepers refrigerate their bees over winter.

So my response to the "you insulate your home, don't you?" statement is that I don't insulate my insulation. "Enough" is enough, and too much is worse, not better.

The article <here> talks about this a bit more. I particularly like the comment about our weather: "Do the squirrels drop dead out of our trees on a cold January night? Of course not. Our bees don’t either."

Your specific question was whether wrapping would benefit a weak hive. I don't think so... I think the problem is its inherent weakness, not the ambient temperature. Making things a little easier for a doomed colony (if that is in fact what we would be doing -- I'm not convinced) may postpone its doom but not avoid it. Even insulated colonies are going to have to generate enough heat to sustain the cluster, whether the ambient temperature is 40 degrees or 50. Think of it this way: would we expect this colony to survive and thrive if we moved it to Wilmington? I don't think the ultimate outcome would change. In my opinion, if we are making choices like that then the far better thing to do is to combine the weak colony with a strong one and be done with it.

Randall



On 11/27/2016 9:28 AM, Mark Waller wrote:
E9181B3C-2621-4011-90C3-5E317986081F AT gmail.com" type="cite">
Thanks Randall on another great teaching moment. I was wondering about your thoughts on insulating bee hives.  I have a neighbor who puts one inch insulation board around his hives.  His theory, “you insulate your home don’t you”?    I was wondering if this would work on weaker hives like the one stated below to help them move around to get more food.  
Thanks for all your help,
mark 

On Nov 26, 2016, at 1:15 PM, Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com> wrote:

Bronwyn,

In addition to the very wise advise that John Rintoul provided off-list regarding whether the weak colony is worth saving, let me give you my thoughts on the direct questions you asked about feeding.

First, aside from the question of whether a colony is worth saving, it is never too late to feed -- unless of course the bees have already starved to death. Plan A is to feed in fall (if necessary) so that the hives are plump with abundant stores before the first hard frost. That way they have plenty of time to cure the syrup into winter stores. However Plan B is to feed whenever feeding is needed, assuming Plan A didn't work out. 
I don't know where the idea got started that there is a deadline on feeding but I've had others ask me about that too. Certainly we want to follow Plan A but that doesn't mean we can't do Plan B. It is sort of like, if you forget to give your kid breakfast (the most important meal of the day!), does that mean you wouldn't give her lunch?
It is helpful to understand the dynamics of food storage and consumption in the hive with respect to bee biology and our Orange County weather. Visualize a hive with 10 deep frames that are completely filled with capped honey. When bees go into cluster, they are like a football that is intersected with combs. The crust of the cluster is like the skin of the football, and underneath the crust life goes on for the bees, somewhat as usual. The capped honey in the combs is thus surrounded by the bees and they feed on it. Perfect arrangement. The cluster can shift onto new honey stores that are directly contiguous to the stores that they are covering. In this way the cluster can creep up during the winter and food is always available as long as it is contiguous.

Bees will go into cluster when the temperature INSIDE the hive falls into the 40s. Note that that isn't the same as the temperature OUTSIDE the hive, because the bees generate a lot of heat themselves -- as much as a 20 watt light bulb. It will always be a good bit colder OUTSIDE the hive than INSIDE it. The colder it gets INSIDE the hive, the tighter the cluster. A loose cluster is able to move around a lot more than a tight cluster, and has a bigger footprint (able to cover more space/more honey). And don't forget that the bees do NOT heat the entire hive; they only attempt to ensure that the brood nest is the correct temperature (around 95 degrees F). So the temperature in an unused section of the hive may be quite cold while the temperature closer to where the mass of bees are is nice and toasty.
Our bees go into and out of cluster, back and forth, all winter long. We always have days in our winters where the ambient highs are in the mid 50s, even in February (and remember, this is the OUTSIDE temperature). That means that our bees can loosen up or disband their cluster regularly throughout the winter. It is only during the times that they break cluster that the bees will be able to access syrup, candy, fondant, loose sugar etc. that you have provided, but around here they have many opportunities to do so. It is a lot like humans and snows in the Piedmont -- there are       times when it snows and we are housebound, living off of what is in our cabinets. But then the snow melts and we can get to the grocery store and restock in preparation for the next snow. If we lived in Alaska, we may never get a chance to restock, but in North Carolina we get frequent opportunities. So think of the sugar we feed in winter as the grocery store. Our NC bees get a chance to go to the grocery store fairly often, but when they get there, the store has to have food on the shelves.

We sometimes do have extended stretches of below-freezing weather where the bees in tight cluster cannot relocate to another section of the hive where there is abundant honey. In those cases we can see bees starve even though there is capped honey just a few inches away. In that circumstance, a few inches may as well be a few miles. Part of the equation is the size of the cluster -- a large cluster has a larger footprint and can therefore cover more comb, so the odds of covering comb with honey in it are greater. Another part of the equation is the continuity of the honey -- it       does no good to have isolated pockets of honey, regardless of how large they are, in different parts of the hive if the cluster cannot overlap with them. Winter feeding can definitely help with the continuity problem.
Candy boards are a very convenient way of providing sugar but there is nothing magical about them. Note that the bees must have sufficient moisture in order to dilute the hard sugar to a digestible form -- they can usually get that from the condensation of water that naturally occurs inside the warm hive. The same need for moisture exists if you were to dump regular ol' granulated sugar directly onto the inner cover. That would be messier but the feeding value would be exactly the same. It isn't the form of the sugar that is important -- it is the fact that we are providing sugar. 2-to-1 sugar syrup, fed in one of the many types of in-hive feeders, is the standard winter feed around here and works fine. However as I mentioned, candy boards are a very convenient way of doing the same thing -- getting sugar on the hive. You could put them, or any form of sugar, on at any time of year (but don't do it when you have surplus honey supers on, intended for harvest, or you'll be committing fraud). Just don't use entrance feeders, especially in winter: the bees must venture out into the cold to access them, they don't hold much, only a few bees can access them at a time and they are easy picking for robbers.

FYI, we cover information like this in bee school. Folks can register on-line <here>. For those that aren't near Orange County, there are a number of other bee schools that are conducted across the state (see list <here>). Bailey Bee Supply also has a bee school that will be conducted in Cary (info <here>). As with feeding sugar, the most critical factor isn't which school you choose, but that you do choose a school. That said, to be honest, the OCBA school has value that other schools do not, such as the opportunity to participate in first-year beekeeper mentoring groups.
Does this help at all?

Randall Austin



On 11/26/2016 7:26 AM, Fadem, Bronwyn Elizabeth wrote:
Greetings OCBA! 

I have read the articles posted about overwintering and when to feed, but still just want some firsthand advice. This will be my first winter taking care of these hives. 

I have a hive that had quite a bit of honey stored up about a month ago, but it has since become almost empty of honey. I have tried feeding sugar syrup, but it doesn't seem to be adding to their stores. Is it too late to try to add a candy board or keep feeding? Is that hive inevitably going to starve? What is the last ditch effort to save a hive at this point? Up until last weekend, the queen was still laying and there was still signs of foraging and a tiny bit of honey, but overall, the hive seems weak. I have another hive that is very strong right now and heavy with honey. Would it be better to just combine the hive? 

I am also just wondering about using candy boards in general-- is it too late to add or not worth it? Is it better to add a candy board just to be safe? Etc.

Thanks for any advice on any of the questions above (I know I put out a lot!) 

Bronwyn 
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