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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com>, Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Overwintering stores - how much is optimal
  • Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 10:10:50 -0400

John,

Just a few cents worth of observations, certainly others may have more:
1) We've got several weeks/maybe a month left of the fall nectar flow (goldenrod and asters), so hopefully your stores will grow a little bit farther before the end
2) By November, unless you are feeding over the winter, you need enough stores to last until the main flow starts in April
3) You need empty space in the hive not only for food stores but also for the queen to lay. If she is a well-educated queen, she'll slow down laying in November and stop in December, but will start back up again in JANUARY. She lays while the hive is still in winter cluster. If you only have enough room for stored food, you won't have enough space for her to lay in late winter. That's why, in my opinion, overwintering in single deeps is insufficient. Many folks overwinter with a deep and a medium, but I prefer to use 2 deeps to allow the queen's laying to bust out in late February/March. (This is all based on 10-frame equipment -- adjust for 8-frame to equal the same square footage of comb space.)
4) If you see "a few" small hive beetles, around here that just means you keep bees. Don't worry about them unless you see lots of them, and go ahead and panic if you see SHB larvae. See the OCBA archives for many posts about how to deal with them proactively.

I was a little confused about the question about "how to control small hive beetles when varroa control is not required." Varroa treatments do not affect SHB at all. Treating for one has no relation to treating the other.

Randall Austin


On 10/3/2014 5:14 PM, John Rintoul wrote:
36351F66-3E1C-457C-908F-27A28ED4C219 AT icloud.com" type="cite"> 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. 










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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